misschrystal

Breathing isn’t something that you’d normally think about or have to concentrate very hard to do, it just comes naturally to most people.  It’s something that is just as much of a given as waking up in the morning and going to the bathroom, your body just knows that that is something that is done without any thought given.  I’ve been battling the last 6 months with my lungs and their unwillingness to breathe.  Its often said that if you’re not from the Phoenix valley area originally that you’ll get Valley Fever sometime during your residency.  I caught it the first winter that I lived here and it’s spread from a small spot on my left lung to several spots on both lungs.  Valley Fever is much like pneumonia in the sense that it’s a fungal airborne allergen that plants itself into the tissue of the lungs of the lucky recipient and never leaves.  The effects come and go usually in the spring and fall with the allergy seasons, but never truly heals.  This past winter I came down with bronchitis in November which progressively turned into pneumonia by January.  Several doses of antibiotics later and it’s still there and getting progressively worse to the point of complete bed rest by March.  My friends were starting to get concerned.  I’m 38 years young and shouldn’t be on bed rest.  Here’s the horrible truth of the matter - I’m permanently on an alburteral nebulizer (daily breathing treatments) for the rest of my life, carry emergency alburteral inhalers in my purse should my lungs get tight and I start to lose my breathe and as it stands today, dear reader, I have no health insurance due to the crappy economy and the fact that no one is hiring.  So what do I do?  I’m grateful that my roommates love me and take care of me.  I’m grateful that I stocked up on my medications while I still have active health insurance.  I’m grateful that I have a house in which to hole-up during the hottest months of summer in Arizona since the heat and humidity make breathing just that much more difficult.  Hopefully I’ll have a job soon where I can reinstitute health insurance and continue with whatever regimen of treatment the doctors deam will work, but until then I sit each morning after a breathing treatment, fill out job applications, sip my coffee and start my day.  Look around you.  You’d be surprised at the things that you take for granted every day.  Have gratitude for these things because you never know when whomever is running this show from the BIG SEAT upstairs decides to throw you a curve ball.

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