Breathe

Breathing has been an issue for me since childhood. I know that I even stopped breathing a few times as an infant to the point of my family finding me blue. Nice, huh?

Anyway, this grew to be more traumatic in childhood, especially in Europe or anytime we would be up North and it was winter. It was brutal. The worst ever was when we were where the Battle of the Bulge took place. To this day anytime I see George C. Scott (he played Gen. Patton) I feel a little joked up. Anytime I see his son Campbell Scott I joke up too - because he's fine - but I digress.

So yeah, asthma. Well predominately being in India, Florida, California it wasn't a problem for me that often. The catalyst appeared to be any form of semi-strenuous activity or winter conditions and the combo of those two was the perfect storm for me.

I had pretty much forgotten about asthma until I took up fencing back in '98. This sucked because I was really good at fencing. I ended up quitting though because it would become a Catch 22. I'd either have an asthma attack or I'd have a panic attack that I'd have an asthma attack and there we go, straight into asthma attack.

So that's what 12 years ago. Well the fear has kept me from ever doing any of the myriad things I've wanted to try, because I'm scared. The most I've really ever done the last 12 years is walking and that comes and goes as the effing migraines of summer kick in.

I need to point out that I have never taken anything for asthma. My family didn't want me to become dependent on an inhaler and I'm actually grateful for that now. I know there are all these pills that have emerged in the last few years, but I really don't like Rx drugs (I sure used to, but that's a tale for another time). I'm not knocking the taking of them, I just found out that my brother is taking...argh... I forget what, but he's an undercover cop and kinda needs to be able to breathe under duress. So if it works for him, that's cool.

The big, grand point to of this that I think I finally have hope!! Between me seeing Peggy (acupuncturist) and Dr. Ron (chiropractor), I've really been listening to my body more and more. On Friday, Dr. Ron told me "Breathe" and he is by no means the first person to say that to me, but I've ALWAYS blown off the statement because not breathing was sort of my thing. I'm doing all this stuff though to get myself right so that night I was like "You need to tell Peggy about your breathing tomorrow." Seriously, I am so accustomed to the problem it was not even on my radar of things to tell her about. So she made me this powder. I'm to dissolve it in warm water and drink it before my walks. It smells kinda like it would rock as a soup seasoning. I really don't know how to describe it, but anyway I did it this a.m. I did my walk. Guess what. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better!!!!!!!!

So what I'm trying to say here my little Blog-Stalkers, is that if you have an issue that you have been living with your whole life --- maybe you don't have to.

You're Welcome.

(the pretty picture is by an artist named Jay Kelly)