You can outgrow the stigma of asthma, but never the frustration

By DITA DE BONI

Take a big, long breath. Now, without exhaling, take another breath. That's what having an asthma attack is like.

I had thought until fairly recently that the days of being bent over my knees, seized up, clammy and unable to breathe were over, the stuff of several long-past childhood nights.

In those days, I would be ordered to sit with my face over a hot bowl, or given hot black coffee, until we could rouse the local doctor to come and hook me up to a machine full of airway-opening vapour.

I was always bewildered at what was happening, and although my family were familiar with the illness, we all had to fight feelings of panic, which can prove fatal to a young child in the midst of a serious attack.

Asthma medication has improved vastly since those days.

However, the fact remains that a lifelong sufferer is never too far from uncomfortable or even potentially fatal situations.

Just a few weekends ago, I found myself - at almost 30 years of age - again being driven to an emergency room in the middle of the night, hooked up to a nebuliser full of medication and suffering an overwhelming and frustrating feeling of deja-vu.

As I child, I thought asthma was such a dorky illness.

Because medication was fairly primitive, sports and outdoor activities were severely curtailed.

I could only attend camps and sleepouts in restricted circumstances. I could never own a horse like my friends, because the very sight of one caused me to swell up like a balloon.

These things can confine many asthmatics to their books and daydreams, and parents eager to protect their offspring also do their part to ensure that nerdiness becomes another side-effect of the disease.

Luckily, being a nerd at the age of 29 is not quite the heartbreaking thing it is at 13. Asthma's effects at my age are more physical than sociological.

Although asthma is classed as a disability, it is hardly the type of ailment that marks you in a crowd of people unless you have to take out your inhaler for a drag.

When you do, you can be sure to attract attention from someone who suffered as a child or whose distant relative was known as a wheeze-bag.

There are some telltale signs.

A pale, puffy face is one - the legacy of a life-long course of steroids to keep airways open.

Such steroids also thin the blood, keep the appetite constant and lower the immune system.

Another telltale sign for me is being alive despite dust, pollution, second-hand smoke, domestic animals and workplace stress. It's a sign I can handle.

Thank God for living in this day and age, when medication is advanced enough to let you live a normal life, unlike those who have suffered - and gone - before.

nzherald.co.nz/health