T.C. Slonaker, author
  • Home
  • The Angelmen Series
    • About the Angelmen Series
    • Trailers
    • Hierarchy of the Beings
  • Books
    • Amity of the Angemen >
      • Sample of Amity of the Angelmen
      • Amity Trailers
      • Reviews of Amity of the Angelmen
    • Caedmon of the Angelmen >
      • Sample of Caedmon of the Angelmen
    • Asher of the Angemen >
      • Sample of Asher of the Angelmen
      • Asher Trailers
      • Reviews of Asher of the Angelmen
    • To Be Released
  • About T.C. Slonaker
    • About Me
    • Interviews
    • Beliefs
    • What Am I Doing Now?
    • Quotes
    • How I Became Published
  • Blogs
    • Passion Under Grace (T.C. Slonaker's blog)
    • Tracy's Top Ten
    • T1D Family Life, While We Are Waiting …
    • Woman on Sports
    • The CDO Writer
    • What's On My iPod
  • Humor
    • Body Language >
      • Chapter 1: About Going for a Ride
      • Chapter 2: Stomach Revolts
      • Chapter 3: A Surprise Early Morning Gym Visit
      • Chapter 4: Birthday Present
      • Chapter 5: Laziness and Cats
      • Chapter 6: Thinking Ahead, I Think
      • Chapter 7: Learning About Softball As A Grown-Up
      • Chapter 8: Allergies, Smallergies
      • Chapter 10: A New Machine at the Gym
      • Chapter 11: After the Flood
      • Chapter 12: Asthma (not so funny)
      • Chapter 13: Birthday
      • Chapter 14: A Snake
      • Chapter 15: Pituitary Coup
      • Chapter 16: My Shorts Don't Fit, Part 1
      • Chapter 17: My Shorts Don't Fit, Part 2
      • Chapter 18: An Accident
      • Chapter 19: An Accident, part 2
      • Chapter 20: On Vacation
      • Chapter 21: Getting Work Done in the Summer
      • Chapter 22: Listening to a Game on the Radio
      • Chapter 23: Interview With a Pancreas
      • Chapter 24: I Don't Have a Cold
      • Chapter 25: Collision at the Plate
      • Chapter 26: The Aftermath
      • Chapter 27: Moving On
      • Chapter 28: At the Beach
  • Events
  • Contact Me
    • Ask A Question!
Share What You Like

Passion Under Grace

My thoughts as a Christian wife, mother, author, person.

What It Feels Like to Run When You Have Asthma

5/6/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
May is National Asthma and Allergies Awareness Month.

May 6 is World Asthma Day.

And so, today, I would like to help those who do not have asthma understand a bit what it feels like to struggle breathing.

Here's What happens:

You know what it feels like when you need to cough, right? You NEED it. You feel that little wiggle of pheylgm and an incurable urge to expel it.

When you have asthma, you do, indeed, produce extra mucus, but your throat is so tightly constricted, you can't force it up. And yet, your brain tells you that you need to cough, so you cough. The cough further inflames your airway, causing it to swell, and giving a tighter grip of your muscles around your throat. Which, then again, makes you want to cough to open the airway. The cough forces out a large amount of air from your body, leaving it with very little left. Since your airway is swollen nearly shut, you can't get more air in. Your brain realizes there is not a good balance of good air to bad air in your body, which makes you panic. When you panic, you naturally produce a spike of cortisol. What does that hormone make you want? More oxygen. What happens when you can't deliver it? More panic. Do you see the loop here?


So, that's what's happening. Here's what it feels like:

Warm, humid days are the worst.
The humidity drapes itself over my body like a wet blanket for the first mile.  It's tangible; I can feel the weight of the air. Then, the blanket sinks deeper, through my skin, and laces seem to appear in the heavy wool of the blanket which cinches tightly, strangling my never-prepared lungs.

Imagine a small child sitting on your chest. You know your lungs are big enough to still breathe and get in the air you need, but because of the child pushing down on your chest, they don't have the room for the air. Your lungs are not stronger than the child. Asthma is that child. 

Your body does everything it can to get air in. So, you start by breathing in through your nose. You breathe heavily- you can never get enough- and so your nostrils begin to burn from the friction of the in-and-out quickness of the air.

Next, you breathe through mouth. After some experience, you know that this will burn worse. You can take in more air through your mouth, quicker. But it does not get where it needs to go. There seems to be a hole in your throat, so the air that comes in never makes it to your lungs.

Panic. You need air. Even your eyes widen, as if you could pull in air through the gaps in your eye lids. You can't think about anything else. If you are moving, you have to stop moving. You have to stop everything else your body is doing to focus on getting air.  

And you are unsuccessful.


How long does it last?

An inhaler gets the oxygen in, so there is help immediately. But it burns going down. The burn lasts in your throat for hours. Also, the medicine leads you (or me anyway) to get get jitters that also last for a while. (This is because the medicine is a stimulant. I get the same affect from coffee.)

What now?

I could quit running. Asthma has made me hate it anyway. But I know the overall health benefits of running make it so that I almost can't give it up. So, I use my stop-gap measures to keep this problem under control the best I can. I go on the treadmill inside (where there is no pollen or humidity) or choose another exercise on days that summer has thrown me its worst. I never really get into a good rhythm. 

I will never stop wondering if I would be able to truly love to run if I could actually breathe. 

1 Comment

    Passion Under Grace,
    Author Blog

    This is the personal blog of T.C. Slonaker, author of the Christian YA fantasy series, The Angelmen.  Read about her thoughts on parenting, faith, marriage, and the world.  You never know what you're going to get!

    Picture

      Follow This Blog:

    Submit

    Archives

    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    Categories

    All
    40
    Amity
    Angelmen
    Asher
    Asthma
    Attitude
    Azaleas
    Baby
    Battles
    Beauty
    Bed
    Bejeweled Blitz
    Biking
    Blog
    Books
    Bully
    Cat
    Categories
    Cats On Lap
    Christianity
    Christmas
    Coaching
    Cold
    Color
    Comfort
    Comfy Chair
    Communion
    Conceit
    Crazy
    Cross
    Customer Service
    Darlings
    Death
    Depression
    Diabetes
    Editing
    Facebook
    Faith
    Games
    God
    Good Deeds
    Good People
    Grammar
    Guilt
    Guns In School
    Heaven
    Humility
    Humilty
    Ice Cream
    Jesus
    Just Say No
    Just Say No
    Kids
    Laziness
    Legs
    Like My Work
    Lollipop
    Money
    MS
    Muse
    Nails
    Nephilim
    New Year
    No
    Notes
    Numbers
    Ocd
    Parenting
    Patience
    Preface
    Pretty Dress Day
    Publishers
    Race
    Reading
    Rejection
    Respect
    Rich
    Richard Paul Evans
    Running
    Sanity
    Satan
    Self-publish
    Sell
    Sheets
    Shoulds
    Sin
    Sleep
    Son
    T1D
    Talent
    Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier
    Tv
    Twitter
    Vacation
    Why I Write
    Wonder Woman
    Worth
    Writing

Photos used under Creative Commons from transp, normalityrelief, iluvcocacola, srgpicker, amboo who?, infomatique, tubedogg, bitmask, Tax Credits, Maggio7, Waiting For The Word, Mr.Lujan, Caperd, alan.stoddard, lolololori, maxime.mcduff, Sharon Mollerus, Lora Rajah, Kuster & Wildhaber Photography, jeff_golden, _M-j-H_, Divine in the Daily, s.schmitz, Robert S. Donovan, Ambernectar 13, ~ggvic~, NIAID, andy_c, dreamymo, elka_cz
  • Home
  • The Angelmen Series
    • About the Angelmen Series
    • Trailers
    • Hierarchy of the Beings
  • Books
    • Amity of the Angemen >
      • Sample of Amity of the Angelmen
      • Amity Trailers
      • Reviews of Amity of the Angelmen
    • Caedmon of the Angelmen >
      • Sample of Caedmon of the Angelmen
    • Asher of the Angemen >
      • Sample of Asher of the Angelmen
      • Asher Trailers
      • Reviews of Asher of the Angelmen
    • To Be Released
  • About T.C. Slonaker
    • About Me
    • Interviews
    • Beliefs
    • What Am I Doing Now?
    • Quotes
    • How I Became Published
  • Blogs
    • Passion Under Grace (T.C. Slonaker's blog)
    • Tracy's Top Ten
    • T1D Family Life, While We Are Waiting …
    • Woman on Sports
    • The CDO Writer
    • What's On My iPod
  • Humor
    • Body Language >
      • Chapter 1: About Going for a Ride
      • Chapter 2: Stomach Revolts
      • Chapter 3: A Surprise Early Morning Gym Visit
      • Chapter 4: Birthday Present
      • Chapter 5: Laziness and Cats
      • Chapter 6: Thinking Ahead, I Think
      • Chapter 7: Learning About Softball As A Grown-Up
      • Chapter 8: Allergies, Smallergies
      • Chapter 10: A New Machine at the Gym
      • Chapter 11: After the Flood
      • Chapter 12: Asthma (not so funny)
      • Chapter 13: Birthday
      • Chapter 14: A Snake
      • Chapter 15: Pituitary Coup
      • Chapter 16: My Shorts Don't Fit, Part 1
      • Chapter 17: My Shorts Don't Fit, Part 2
      • Chapter 18: An Accident
      • Chapter 19: An Accident, part 2
      • Chapter 20: On Vacation
      • Chapter 21: Getting Work Done in the Summer
      • Chapter 22: Listening to a Game on the Radio
      • Chapter 23: Interview With a Pancreas
      • Chapter 24: I Don't Have a Cold
      • Chapter 25: Collision at the Plate
      • Chapter 26: The Aftermath
      • Chapter 27: Moving On
      • Chapter 28: At the Beach
  • Events
  • Contact Me
    • Ask A Question!
✕