When I was a little girl, I was diagnosed with asthma after many doctor visits. I remember my mom making me take my inhalers everywhere I went. I remember doing the occasional nebulizer breathing treatment once in awhile. I remember having a couple of asthma attacks, although they were not that common and I was lucky for that.
As I got older, the asthma calmed down. I could leave my inhalers at home. I never even had to use them; it was a rare instance if I did. This past February, I left to study abroad in Seoul, South Korea. Now, I knew Korea had an air pollution problem; it has become a huge issue within their society and it leads to a lot of talk among their citizens and it infiltrates their political scene as well. Even though I had not had my asthma symptoms in over 10 years, it never occurred to me that I would need to bring an inhaler.
The spring months in Korea are when the fine dust is the worse. The government has certified masks in all of the convenient stores, meant to solve the issue. And I figured it would do just that, but it didn’t. It wasn’t until late April that I knew there was something wrong. For three nights in a row, I had trouble breathing. Knowing I was on the opposite side of the world, I thought it might just be anxiety because studying abroad comes with a lot of that, but I had never felt like that before.
I forced myself to go to the doctor. They gave me an inhaler, and it fixed part of the problem, but there were still days where my chest constantly felt heavy and it was the first time in an extremely long time that something that came so natural to me, to everybody, was becoming something I had to work at once again. This felt especially scary because I was on the other side of the world from my family and the doctor I had been seeing my whole life.
There were good days and bad days with my breathing. Once I got home from being away for four and a half months, it was still bad. I went to my doctor and they said the physician I saw while I was abroad had given me the wrong kind of inhaler. I was back to taking two inhalers 4 times a day for the rest of summer. Things ended up being fine like they normally are. I did my inhaler routine for months and everything went back to normal quickly.
Recently, a couple months later, my mom told me about a little girl she teaches in preschool who needed a babysitter. I, a college student who loves to make a bit of extra cash whenever she can, found myself babysitting this girl a week later. Before I could do that though, my mom informed me that she has cystic fibrosis. I knew what that was, of course, but I felt as though I didn’t know enough to watch and be responsible for a little girl who suffers from it. I spent some time looking things up. I found that the little girl I babysit has to undergo airway clearance treatments twice each day wearing a vest that shakes her 14 times a second, for 20 minutes. She has to take enzymes before she eats anything; this usually amounts to 20 pills every single day. She has to see doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist, including respiratory therapists. Her parents have to be extremely aware of her surroundings because if she is around other kids who are sick, she could very easily get sick too, and with cystic fibrosis, that is amplified. Because of her disease, she has had to learn the harsh realities of what it could lead to and that is not something a typical 4 year old has to think or talk about.
When looking at her, one sees an active little girl who has bright eyes and healthy, curly hair. When I babysat her for the first time, I had to give her enzymes and I was nervous each time that I wasn’t giving enough. Or maybe I was giving too many. That night, I came home and googled the average life-span of a person with cystic fibrosis and my heart sank. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good idea.
Instances like this really put things into perspective. Yeah, asthma isn’t fun, but it comes and goes. It doesn’t feel terminal for me. This little girl is having time taken away from her and she’s only a preschooler. Time spent at the playground and with her friends and family is taken away by being at the doctors while they look for cultures that could be growing in her throat. Her parents must sacrifice time to get to those appointments and to perform her daily regimen just to make sure she can stay healthy.
My two months of breathing issues will never amount to what someone with a terminal illness will face. I’m thankful for my body and for my lungs. I’m thankful that I can breathe without needing daily assistance from large machinery, nebulizers, and airway treatments.
Going back to my study abroad experience in South Korea, I was also taught a lot about little things I should be thankful for, and the biggest one is clean air. I’m thankful that here at home, I can sleep with the windows open at night and not worry about waking up with a sore throat because of the dust that might have crept in. I’m thankful that I can wake up in the morning and go about my day without looking at an app that tells me how hazardous the air will get hour by hour and wonder if I need to take a mask with me. I’m thankful that when I look outside, I can see the blue of the sky with no smog blocking me from doing so. I’m thankful that when I quite literally need to “get some fresh air,” I can.
The air we breathe and breathing in general is something many of us take for granted, and up until recently, I was guilty too. For most of us, we breathe air naturally and do it without thinking, so it’s hard to imagine that there are people who have to work hard to make sure their lungs can function properly. It’s hard to imagine that there are people who have to worry about the air they breathe being dirty and could affect their health in a negative way just by stepping outside. Being thankful for the small things is important, especially around the holiday season because it makes one realize how lucky they truly are.