@jerry-d

In my early 20s, an allergist / immunologist diagnosed me with exercise-induced asthma. Lung problems plagued me during high school. For years, I didn’t exercise because of it, afraid of an asthma attack. If you’ve ever had a bad one, it feels like you’re going to die from suffocation. If the asthma attack itself doesn’t kill you, the panic attack from the fear of it might just do the trick. In my early 30s, I got winded when walking up stairs. I was tired of living like this, living a half-life, and resolved to ignore my doctor’s advice, to repudiate the part of his diagnosis that kept me living with the fear of suffocation if some allergy or sudden environmental change (wildfires and the ensuing soot in the air) were to bring on a bad attack. I wrote more about this in some detail a few months back in the quote cast below. Too much of my life has been spent denying my health issues and while I’m still at risk, I have found a modicum of peace by living as an asthmatic on my own terms.

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