Once again asthma has prevailed and won the battle with me. No I am not on my way to hospital or being admitted but am succumbing to the hold that asthma has over my life. I have to cut my hours at work now because of my asthma.
A career I love doing and don’t find any effort in doing it is slipping out of my hands. First stopping doing night shifts, then moving off the ward, and now reducing my hours. Next I fear it will be giving up. Sometimes on nights like this I have to force myself to take my tablets, inhalers and nebulisers as I question what are they actually doing other than making me feel miserable and have awful side effects. I know the sensible side of my head reasons and I do realise that if I didnt take my meds I wold be in a sorry state and wouldn’t be able to work, function or even be out of hospital I reckon or have the ability to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide effectively, but I do still feel like chucking them in the bin as they are not giving me the results I see other people get. It frustrates me and makes me restless and irritable. I end up taking it out on people who have nothing to do with it and are just there- the wrong place at the wrong time!!!
Side effects are really getting to me just now. Last night I saw every hour of clock and found restless legs really bad but also found it effected my arms last night too- more in my elbows it was horrible. I couldn’t do anything to help it. I was going crazy. I am getting a lot of pain in my chest too particularly on the left side. I don’t want to take strong pain killers but the pain is really stopping me a lot now and I am going to on holiday so I think the time has come to ask for something a wee bit stronger. I feel like I just want to give in to it all and not fight it any more. I always try and take as little as possible and only take the essential medications but I just have no energy to feel rubbish I want to feel well. I want that drive back, and lust for life, to go out and do things, try new sports and have adventures, not sit at home and watch life pass by which is what it feels like it is doing sometimes.
I hope that with reducing my hours I can build myself back up. I can get well again. I can find my love of life and enjoy living not feeling like it is a battle or that I am only feeling as I do because I am so full up on medication. It would be nice to rewind 11 years and make different decisions and see where I would be.
When I come back from holiday it will be a new chapter. A new set of work hours and new goals in life. I am going to set small manageable aims and targets to make my reduced hours worthwhile and I will benefit from them.
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 