Wow!!
I can’t believe my blog is 9 years old later this month. This is the first post I wrote. I started this blog as a means to vent my frustrations and feelings about living my life with difficult to control asthma aka brittle asthma. I started writing it purely for myself, to express how I really felt. I was awful at talking about my feelings and just wouldn’t. I would say I was fine whenever asked how I was, I just didnt want to ever talk about how I really felt. I still do that a lot but I am a little better than I used to be (although I am sure so many people would disagree). I would bottle everything up and rather than speak I would take my frustration out hitting hundreds of golf balls at the driving range, running until I couldn’t run anymore as my lungs would be on fire begging me to stop or I would take my anger out and punch a wall which I would later learn is never a good thing and it does cause long term damage to your hands!
(photo taken 9 years ago doing a bucket collection for Asthma UK just after I started this blog)
The purpose of my blog is still the same although it has evolved. It is still a means for me to express how difficult it is to live with brittle asthma, the ups and downs, highs and lows, and how it effects my life and those around me. Over time rather than it just being for me my blog has become a learning tool for people in the medical field showing the real life of the condition rather than just what they see, how research has shaped what I do and how others can benefit from research not just from being a participant in a trial but being involved in the research process, and what people with such a difficult illness really want. I have been so lucky with the people who have contributed to my blog over the years sharing their experience of living with asthma from all over the world and all different types of asthma. When I first started it I never thought I would still be writing my blog now. Im sure many of the posts over the years are pretty similar and repetitive but in some ways it shows just how backwards asthma medication is and how there have not been revolutionary changes in asthma medication unless you have very specific phenotypes such as eosinophilic asthma then its great as you can get one of the new “mabs” that are being developed. Neutrophillic or non atopic asthma your not so lucky and just need to keep plodding on with what you have!
Im not sure if this blog will still be going in 9 more years time but I do appreciate everyones comments and the traffic it gets. It is amazing to see how people all over the world read my blog and the number who visit it everyday. So for that I am very thankful.
DUM SPIRO SPERO
ANONYMOUS-ASTHMA 