Returning to work in a fog of smoke.

I have been back at work now on a phased return and it is going fairly well except for one part. When my chest feels tight I do find it a bit of a struggle to get from the car park to the hospital. The staff car park is the furthest out from the hospital and includes crossing the road that circles the hospital. It is not to far only about 400m probably but when your chest is tight it feels like a marathon.

To compound this staff seem incapable of waiting until they are either in their car or off the hospital site before they light up they cigarette and go on their way. I see them walking out the hospital cigarette and lighter in hand before they are even out the building- it is almost like you can see them itching to light it which they do as soon as they are out the building. It appears that they cannot survive without their nicotine that they don’t have a care for who is around them all they are focused on is lighting up and getting their fix not worrying about the effect they have on others as long as their cravings are satisfied.

I guess I am more sensitive to triggers now than I ever was before because of the attacks I have had since the start of the year- they terrified me and still haunt me. My lungs are still twitchy so any trigger will make me feel tight and wheezy. When I was off sick I longed to go back to work to have a purpose to the day and get back to the job I love but how can I do the job I love when getting into work I can only describe as running the gauntlet not knowing what I am going to have to go through just to get from my car and into safety of the hospital. This really hit me yesterday when I had 3 people in front of me smoking as I left the hospital to get to my car. I had to wait outside in the cold until they had moved far enough away that their smoke had dissipated and was no longer a threat. To me smoke is as much of a threat as a dangerous patient if not worse. You can’t call security for help from someone smoking but you can for a dangerous patient. I don’t mean to trivialise a dangerous patient but to me right now smoke is more of a danger to me than anything else. I don’t want an attack triggered- the fear of another asthma attack like I had grips me so hard I can’t shake it off.

I know you can’t go around dictating what people do but what I have huge difficulties with is that the hospital is meant to be a no smoking zone and there are signs everywhere which are just disregarded and no notice is taken of them. Many of the people I see out smoking are nurses. The same caring compassionate profession that I am in yet they really don’t actually care for those around them. There is nothing worse than being a patient and having a nurse come off their break smelling of smoke and you are sitting in a respiratory ward and could quite easily be set off just by the smoke that is lingering in their hair or on their clothes.

I think my issue that I have trouble accepting is that I did not choose to have my lungs like this. I am trying to do all I can to stay well and achieve what I want to do but I see all these people who choose to smoke and are choosing to do damage to their lungs and other peoples lungs. I do remember once I was subject to one persons smoke which caused me to have an asthma attack and go to hospital- the nurse’s smoke that caused the asthma attack was the nurse who ended up looking after me. I found this really hard.

I have rambled a little bit here but I am just so frustrated that by trying to work and get to work I am risking my own health to get inside the building. I have asked to move carpark to one that is closer so that the gauntlet I have to run is shorter and therefore the potential risk is much less but this is yet to happen and Im not sure if it will happen. It is a very small request but it does make me think what is the point of pushing myself to work when those around don’t want to try and help. To put it bluntly if those who smoke think about those around them and perhaps smoke only where they are meant to they would not effect other people, they would reduce the number of people who end up in hospital and therefore reduce their work load making their life easier.

This is a little bit off the deep end but its how I feel.