It ain't easy being wheezy!

My good friend asthma, I've had serious asthma since I was about three. It's not your average run of the mill asthma, it's more the kind of asthma that makes me happy I live in the day of modern medicine. Darwin would not be impressed by my survival. At least I was a cute Asthmatic as a kid!

I take a shit load of drugs, for all the nerd out there here is the list. Salbutamol or Ventolin for the non RT people, is my rescue inhaler, used for when I cant breath which is often. I take Singulair, Nasonex, and allergy drugs.  I also take an inhaled steroid called Alvesco and an oral/ systemic steroid called Prednisone, they are controller drugs and essentially try and keep the inflammation in my lungs under control. Prednisone works like magic, but the side affect are pretty hairy, literally it can cause hair growth in new and exciting places, it also can cause: high blood pressure, cataracts, glaucoma, fluid retention, weight gain, a "moon-faced" appearance, fragile-thin skin, muscle weakness, brittle bones, purplish stripe marks on the skin, insomnia, mood changes, personality changes, euphoria, psychotic behavior, and severe depression. Now don't worry I wont change into a fat crazy wolf-man with brittle bones, for the most part I'm on a low alternative day dose, which keeps the crazy fat hairy wolfman transformation at bay. I'm lucky that way, I tolerate the drug very well.

 

So I take seven drugs to manage my daily symptoms and when I get sick there are more (like antibiotics etc). It takes between 650-1000$ a month to keep me alive. I'm a fan of medical insurance, MSP and fair Pharmacare. My pharmacist loves me, I swear to god they see money signs above my head and I'm pretty sure I'm most pharmaceutical companies wet dream.

Since entering the program I've gotten better at managing my disease. I also got attacked by my classmates yielding stethoscopes every-time I wheezed in class. It was pretty much a free for all on my wheezing, I'm proud to say I'm a lot of my classmates first real live wheezer. I'm thinking that will stop now that we will be seeing real patients at the hospital. It was funny whenever a teacher would say the word asthma in class often people would look in my direction. I'm not going to lie, I like the attention, for the first time, my asthma was cool. Well I thought my asthma was cool.
 

I haven't been to the hospital so far this year, and hopefully I wont have to hospital much as patient anymore and will only go there as student/working RT. I've spent enough time as a patient. I hope you like the picture of my drugs and my super awesome daily drug organizer! So one more time YEAH for modern medicine!

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