I have an experiment for you all. Find a straw, a relatively normal sized one. Hold on to that straw. Now, go running. Don't sprint, don't power walk, somewhere in between. When you start breathing heavy, try breathing through the straw. You'll feel something similar to asthma. Not easy. Can't get enough air, can ya? Ha, welcome to my world.
I absolutely LOVE exercising, especially running. It was one of my favorite things to do everyday. But that was when I had moderate asthma. Some people grow out of it, some stay about the same, and for some like me, it gets worse. Now when I attempt to run, I have my ipod in one hand(on too loud to block out the sound of my wheezing,) and my inhaler in grasped in the other. Lately I've been backing away from running because my asthma is limiting me more and more.
I had my plan to try out for high school soccer when I got old enough. I had played for 8 years before. It was my dream to be on the high school team. I went to conditioning for a week, and quit. I couldn't keep up with anybody. I'm great on the field, but when they made us do the exercises, i was useless. Dream, down the drain. So, I ended up throwing varsity discus. It's really nice because it's laid back. Not too physically demanding. We don't usually run, but when we do, I go with. They tell the throwers, "Come on, how often do we run? So don't whine, just do it." Now the coaches know I have asthma, but I feel like I need to go with them. They tell me I can sit out if I need to. But I always turn it down. You know why? I figured not, my own dad doesn't even understand through the many times I've explained it to him. I feel week when I sit out, watching everybody. I feel like I'm not apart of the team, running together as a team. It's unfair, I work SO much harder than everyone else, only to do the same task at the same quality. I feel like I'm not as good as anybody else because I can't do half the things they do. If you don't have this defect, you won't ever understand what we feel like. About once every track season I break down. Usually it's after we run. I can't take it. I feel like every body pities me. They run by me and tell me to go sit out, and I know what their thinking. "She's probably trying to get out of running. It's probably not even that bad having asthma." I so wish to prove them wrong, and I try. But the asthma defeats me. It's really frustrating when people tell me what to do to try to get it to stop, and it's the same thing over and over again. "Put your hands over your head and walk it out." It's for opening your lungs dumbass. My throat is closing idiot. Of course I don't tell them that, but it doesn't work for me. Never does.
So as my life goes on, I'll be getting lazier and lazier. Getting more restricted on the things I can and cannot do. Maybe I'll take up knitting or something.
