My New Best Friend

            by Emma Schnur

 

            It does not come out of nowhere.  It does not sneak up on you when you’re not looking.  It starts with the occasional wheeze, and then progresses into coughing.  Then comes the full fledged attack: the coughing and the wheezing all rolled into one, followed with the sensation that you’re suffocating; there is never going to be enough air to satisfy your lungs.  You become a fish that has just been plucked from the water and is fighting for breath.  It’s the worst feeling, as if you’re slowly dying.

            I have always had asthma.  Some people, like my brother, get asthma as a child then never have another problem with asthma again.  Then there are people like me - people who can’t even begin to exercise in P.E class without taking their inhaler for fear that they will collapse after running one lap.  When I would tell people that I had asthma, they would do one of two things: they would look at me as if it were some sort of disease that I would give to them if they got on my bad side, or ask where my pocket protector was (because only nerds have asthma.  Hilarious, I know).  Because of this, I was always afraid to take my medicine when I needed it.  I felt as though everyone was looking at me, trying to see the “asthma” on me, and what it looked like. 

             I remember when I first learned what asthma was.  I was seven years old, in the cold sterile environment that is Kaiser.  I was there to see my pediatrician, Dr Udkow.  The first thing she did when she entered that room was to pull out an inhaler.

“This,” she pronounced, “is going to be your new best friend.”

            I looked at this piece of plastic.  This was my new best friend?  This was going to take care of me when I was struggling to breathe.  I reached out and held it in my hand.  It was still plastic.  I was unimpressed, to say the least.

            “Here’s what you do,” she continued, not noticing my skepticism.  “Hold the inhaler with the mouth piece on your thumb and your pointer finger on the metal part,” she paused and leaned forward to help me as I struggled with this foreign object.  “Now, when you feel like you can’t breathe, take your inhaler and put the mouth piece in your mouth.  Then push down on the metal, and breathe in, holding your breath.  You’ll be able to hear the medicine come out.  When you hear the medicine, I want you to spell your name in your head three times, E-M-M-A-S-C-H-N-U-R-E-M-M-A-S-C-H-N-U-R-E-M-M-A-S-C-H-N-U-R.  When you’re done with that, breathe out.  Got it?”

            This woman is crazy, I thought.  There is no way I’m going to spell my name out three times in my head.  I’ll just have to get rid of this by myself.

            Unfortunately, I never did.  I tried to not use my inhaler when I needed it, but no matter how much I tried to ignore it, the asthma would only come back stronger than ever.  My mother was another reason why my devious plan to conquer asthma didn’t work.  She also had asthma and as a child had been hospitalized many times.  Because of her experiences, she had a sixth sense for asthma.  Whenever I had the slightest wheeze or shortness of breath, she would say, “Take your inhaler.”  If I didn’t do it right away, she would nag me until I stomped into my room to take it.  She could even be in a different room than me, at the opposite end of the house, and if I made any noise that was asthma related, she would come to me holding an inhaler in her hand and wouldn’t leave until I took it, no matter how much I claimed that I didn’t need it.

            Throughout my elementary and most of my middle school career, I never had any major attacks.  I had learned from Dr. Udkow that my triggers for asthma were: cold air, exercise, and any kind of illness.  Whenever my asthma would get worse due to one or all of those factors, I would get up early in the morning and take my nebulizer, a stronger prescription than the regular inhaler.  While it was fun for me to get up and watch cartoons on a weekday morning, which I usually never got to do, I dreaded taking the actual medicine.  A nebulizer is a huge chunky box that has a wire with a mouthpiece on it.  The medicine is liquid that evaporates so I could inhale it, and it takes half an hour for me to inhale all of it.  Every once in a while, it wouldn’t evaporate completely and I would inhale a huge drop of the salt-tasting liquid.  It was disgusting.

            In the seventh grade, I had an unbroken string of colds that just followed each other in a relentless line.  I would get a virus, feel better for about a day, and then I would catch another virus.  With each cold towed along a bad case of asthma, which meant I had to resume the nebulizer.  This on-going dance shackled me to my bed for three months.  And it just so happened that in the middle of those three months was my Bat Mitzvah.  Now, you have to understand that having a Bat Mitzvah takes a lot of work.  You start studying for it at least three months in advance.  You memorize the Torah portion, learn the Haftorah portion, learn all the prayers that are read, and think of a speech to explain everything that has been going on during the service.  Not to mention you have to think about the party the night before, the party after, and what you are going to wear to all three of those.  Needless to say, it’s a huge deal. 

When it came closer to the big date and I still had asthma and was still in lying bed, my parents freaked out.  They were concerned that I would have to go to the hospital and miss my Bat Mitzvah.  Part of me was scared about what would happen.  Everyone kept asking me if I was all right, what was going on, how I would recover for the Bat Mitzvah - all the kinds of questions that a regular thirteen year old girl couldn’t answer anyway even if she could breathe.  What most people didn’t get was that stress could also trigger asthma, and let me tell you, I felt a lot of it then.  My peers and even some of my family believed that I would have to postpone it.  For me, that was not an option.  I did not want the dark cloud of worry and anxiety to drag over my head.  It could have been because of my determination that I was not going to miss that date, or it could have been that God actually smiled on me for once instead of pointing and laughing, but I was able to pull myself together and force my way through the barrier and into the temple.

            After I conquered my Bat Mitzvah, I felt like the hero who returned home after defeating a ghastly beast.   I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel - to come out and finally be free, and to know what it’s like to run a mile without getting winded, or go crazy at a dance without having to sit down in the middle and catch my breath.  I was the person that you see in a cartoon, with the sun behind me while I proudly stood on a mountaintop with my hands on my hips. 

            Sadly, that fantasy did not last for long.  I continued to get sick and my asthma continued to get worse.  Walking from one end of the house to the other made me feel as though I had just completed a triathlon.  And my house is tiny.  Even Tom Thumb would think it’s too small for him.  My airways felt as though they were being squeezed by a boa constrictor and were slowly closing.  My heartbeat increased to about a million beats per second due to all the medication that I was taking.  My hands would shake so hard that I couldn’t hold a pen or pencil in my hand without dropping it.  No matter how much medicine I took, no matter how much I rested, no matter how much I tried to get better, I never was well. 

            I was lying in my mom’s bed one day in June of that same year, when suddenly, the boa constrictor slowly came slithering up to me.  It made it’s way into my airways and began the routine squeezing.  I didn’t think twice about taking my inhaler and thus banishing it from my body for six hours.  However, this time it refused to let go of me.  I tried again.  Inhale medicine, E-M-M-A-S-C-H-N-U-R-E-M-M-A-S-C-H-N-U-R-E-M-M-A-S-C-H-N-U-R, breathe out.  It didn’t move.  The next thing I knew, an anvil was crashing down on top of me, and I couldn’t move.  It relentlessly started pushing on my chest, careful not to hit the constrictor, but just enough to make my airways close. 

            Seven inhalers and three nebulizers later, my mom and I were on our way to the hospital.  For me, going to the hospital for yourself and going to the hospital to see a friend are two very different things.  When I came in to see a friend at the hospital, the only thing that hit me was how sterile and clean it was, how it smelled.  My heart rate increased, and the only thing I could think about was when I was going to get out, when I could leave.  But when I was in there for me, I was in the middle of the sick.  I was the sick.  All around me were the marks of the dead and the dying.  I was in denial about my situation, so I wasn’t worried for myself.  I knew that hospitals could fix anything.  Heck, my mom had been to the hospital as a child so many times before, and look at her now!  She was fine.  I will be fine.

~

            Five hours later I was home, but within half an hour I was back in the car again, the emergency room as my destination, with my mom by my side and my dad following behind us.  My mom had the radio on, and to compensate for not knowing the words to the song, she just sang really loudly.  I laughed at her, but at that the constrictor strengthened its grip and I had to beg her to stop.  I knew that she was trying to calm me down by singing, but in truth it made me more nervous.  She was already barreling down the tiny street at 60 miles an hour, her knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel so hard.  If my mom had to pretend that everything was all right, was something wrong?  The more I thought about it, the more scared I became.  What happens if nothing happens?  I had already stayed there for five hours today.  I glanced at the clock on the dashboard.  It glared back 7:03.  Would I have to stay overnight?  No not me.  I was not one of those kids.  I couldn’t be one of those kids.  The constrictor hissed and coiled around my airways again.  Stop.  Don’t get stressed out.  That’s what it wants.  Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

            The hospital doors parted as we made our way in.   I was wearing three jackets to shelter me from the vicious, cold night air.  Normally I would have felt like a snowman, but tonight my only focus was breathing.  My dad steered me to an empty seat in the waiting room while my mom ran to check us in.  On the other side of the room there were two kids sitting on the floor.  They both looked like they were six years old.  Their parents sat in the blue chairs behind them, accompanied by what appeared to be the other sibling.  The parents looked worried and scared.  The father had his arm around the child, and the child was leaning on his dad, eyes closed, breathing heavily.  I looked at my dad.  We were sitting the same way.

 My mom came and sat down next to me.  Always trying to keep things casual, she looked around and spotted an asthma attack guide on the wall.

            “Oh Em, this is perfect.  Ok, here’s what we’re going to do.  I’m going to read this to you and we’re going to find out what level attack you’re having.  Ok?”

I nodded.  Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

            “Are you wheezing?  I would say yes.  What do you think?”

            I gave her my best “No Shit Sherlock” look and resumed concentrating on my lap. Breathe in. Breathe out.

            “Ok, are you breathless? Do you have trouble talking?  Are your neck muscles tight?” she looked at me quizzically. Breathe in. Breathe out. “Moving on.  Are your nails blue or gray?” she took my hand in hers and inspected my nails.  “Well, that’s you in a nutshell baby!  It seems as though you are having a level three attack.  The most severe kind.  No problem though, I mean-”

            I closed my eyes and tuned her out.  My heart skipped a beat.  The most severe level of an asthma attack?  That can’t be true. 

            “I…I’m… not… that…. bad…”

            “What honey? I can’t hear you.” My mom leaned towards me.  “What did you say?”

“I’m …not…ba-……………………I……..…..can’t……………....breathe.” Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

            She laughed.  “Well I know that.  That’s why we’re here.”

            The nurse, wearing a big floral print to keep things light, walked into the room and said, “Emma Sknoour?”

            “Emma Schnur.  Yeah. That’s us.”  We followed the nurse into a small room.  She immediately stuck a mask over my face and tightened the elastic behind my head.

            “Now, because this is the emergency room, we aren’t set up to keep her here overnight, which is what she needs to do” The nurse paused while she turned on a machine.  I began to hear the swooshing of medicine coming into my face.  “We’ve arranged a place for her at ­­­­­­­­­­­­­Merritt Hospital, where they have better accommodations.  I don’t want to take her off the medicine because her attack is so bad, so I’m going to call the ambulance to take her over…”

            Ambulance? Like the real kind with the lights and sirens? But I... Almost as immediately as my worrying had begun, it subsided.  An ambulance.  What a good story.  I like ambulances.  They’re cool… ……Ho Hum………Lots of sitting. I’m still here with the mask o- eww, liquid just flew up my nose. Do I sneeze? If I sneeze, wouldn’t I inhale the sneeze? Then sneeze again, then inhale… what a vicious cycle.

Two men.  Both old.  “Get up.” Oh, me. Get up.  Move beds. “Lie on your back.” This bed rolls! Moving. Tile, light, tile, light, tile, light, tile, light. Cold.  Bump.  Car.  “Is this your first time?”  Lights.  “Can be scary, but hopefully this will be the only time your in one of these things.”  Stop.  Bump.  Cold.  Tile, light, tile, light, tile, light, tile, light.  Medicine. “I’ll come in every two hours and change your medicine.” Day One.  Day Two.  Day Three.  Day Four.  Home? There is no way I’m going home.  What happens if I have another attack? I have to schlep all the way back here. No. I’m not going home.  I’m NOT going home.  Home.

 

 

~

I wish I could tell you that that was the end of my asthma.  While I was in the hospital, they told me that my lung tissue had scarred and it would take a while for the tissue to get better, if they even got better at all.  My attack forced me to be more conscious of my surroundings and the situations that I am in.  For example, if I know that I am going to be outside at night in the cold, I always bring my inhaler.  I don’t second-guess myself.  It’s a matter of life or death.