Comments on: Fear

By: dinane

dinane — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:25:18 +0000

I didn’t even see this comment until I was posting the post about how I saw you on the 10th!

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 05:57:45 +0000

Check my LJ please…will the 10th work for you?

- J

By: LJ-dinane

LJ-dinane — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:27:26 +0000

Thank you hon.

By: LJ-losugarve

LJ-losugarve — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:25:11 +0000

Hi Diane,

I am so sorry for what you are going through. I can imagine how worried you must be. Maybe I can shed a little lightness onto the situation though – - I actually really enjoy that magical machine at the Asthma Specialist’s Office. Sometimes, depending on the office, the computer has a little display of a birthday cake, and you are told just to blow into this tube like you are blowing out the candles. And as you exhale, the image updates and the flames on the candles start going out. It actually really helps calm you down, and can be kind of fun.

Good luck at your appointment though. Hang in there. And don’t forget, it really is a good thing that you are going to figure all this out. Once you know what is going on and have the proper information for how to handle it, you probably won’t be nearly as worried, and the scary situation will become much more bearable…

I’m here if you want to talk :o) HUGS!

By: dinane

dinane — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:22:04 +0000

I’d love to not have asthma, so long as what I do have isn’t worse! :)

By: Josie

Josie — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:23:36 +0000

*hugs* understanding all of it. while simple concern is nice, just in case, when you have your inhaler and know how to deal with an attack, having 20 people staring and hovering while you try to make your lungs go, is uncomfortable too.

i really hope for you that you don’t have asthma.

By: dinane

dinane — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:15:25 +0000

Yes sir!

Although, as my luck would have it, if I do have asthma, and I still don’t know that for sure, I would have adult onset, so… not so much with the growing out of it.

I do know that my fear of hospitals, doctors and especially ambulances comes from a similar childhood experience, however. I had epilepsy (which I did grow out of, much as you grew out of asthma) as a child. I woke up in ambulances a lot. Not pleasant. Still to this day, I would rather walk to the hospital with two broken legs than take an ambulance ride.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:46:43 +0000

Boy I totally empathaize with you about scared. The absolute most frightening moment in my life, to date, occurred when I was 10 years old. I was playing basketball for St. Joseph’s Church in Worcester. Up until that time I had spent a normal chldhood hiking, playing hockey and baseball, swimming and, y’know, just generally doing all the things kids normally do. I was skinny then. Then the moment happened. I’m running down the court, desperately trying to defend (I really, really suck at basketball) and all-of-a-sudden I couldn’t breathe. Period. That was it. One minute I was sucking in air just as fine as you please and the next my air was gone. For what seemed like an eternity every fiber in my body was crying out for air. I was later told it was close to 2 minutes that I was out-of-action.
Needless to say this prompted one of the very few visits to the emergency room of my childhood. Like you, I hate the hospital, doctors, and just about anything medical. I cross the street to avoid being closer to the hospital than I have to when I walk from home to the lab.
To this day I can’t stand the sport of basketball. From that time on I also avoided all the other sports that I liked to do as much as possible for fear that it would happen again.
I had to carry that damn proventil inhaler with me wherever I went.
Fortunately, I’m supposed to have “outgrown” it. I’ve never had it occur, even when I was pumping hard underwater as a driver.

Now I’m rambling. Don’t be as afraid as I was. The inhalers do work. The breathing exercises help. Own it instead of letting it own you.