Wake Up!!!!!!!!!!
"You've been hanging on by a thread haven't you?"
These words, spoken by a woman I'd never met before that day, could not have been more true.
"Well" I sputtered, "My daughter was sick last week. She has pretty awful asthma and so I had to take the week off from work to care for her. And my mother-in-law, she lives upstairs, has bronchitis so I certainly couldn't ask her to help out. My little cousin, who lives upstairs too, has strep throat and she still has to go to school and work part time...hell, even my dog has been sneezing this week. Every single member of my household has been sick so I knew I'd catch something eventually but I couldn't take any more time off from work and..."
I sounded like a damn fool even to my own ears.
Yesterday, after feeling like shit for an entire week and a half, I finally called my doctor's office and made an appointment to come in after work to see the nurse practitioner, Nina.
It wasn't until that very moment, sitting across from this stranger as she went over the results of my peak flow breathing with me, that I realized just how run down I'd let myself become.
"Your lungs are so tight" she began. "And your peak flow results are not good. The minimum number we want to see is 450, you're only at 250. When you were here for your asthma last month, did the Prednisone that Dr. Johnson prescribed work for you?"
"Oh yes, it always does."
"And have you been taking the Flovent she prescribed?"
Ummmm...Flovent? Did she mean the daily steroid my doctor had told me that I should take during cold and flu season, and that I had picked up from the pharmacy, tossed onto the living room table and COMPLETELY forgotten about? That Flovent?
I felt like a moron.
My father DIED from a massive asthma attack, just like his mother before him. I know better than to fuck around with this particular illness but I had to take care of Amira of course, and then I had to hurry up and get back to work, and then my dog developed an infected nipple so I had to take her to the vet and have that checked out and...
Feel free to insert any other bullshit excuse you can think of right here.
NO MORE.
No more taking my own health and well-being for granted. No more coming in last place in my own life.
This was the wake up call I so desperately needed.
It's time to start taking care of me.
These words, spoken by a woman I'd never met before that day, could not have been more true.
"Well" I sputtered, "My daughter was sick last week. She has pretty awful asthma and so I had to take the week off from work to care for her. And my mother-in-law, she lives upstairs, has bronchitis so I certainly couldn't ask her to help out. My little cousin, who lives upstairs too, has strep throat and she still has to go to school and work part time...hell, even my dog has been sneezing this week. Every single member of my household has been sick so I knew I'd catch something eventually but I couldn't take any more time off from work and..."
I sounded like a damn fool even to my own ears.
Yesterday, after feeling like shit for an entire week and a half, I finally called my doctor's office and made an appointment to come in after work to see the nurse practitioner, Nina.
It wasn't until that very moment, sitting across from this stranger as she went over the results of my peak flow breathing with me, that I realized just how run down I'd let myself become.
"Your lungs are so tight" she began. "And your peak flow results are not good. The minimum number we want to see is 450, you're only at 250. When you were here for your asthma last month, did the Prednisone that Dr. Johnson prescribed work for you?"
"Oh yes, it always does."
"And have you been taking the Flovent she prescribed?"
Ummmm...Flovent? Did she mean the daily steroid my doctor had told me that I should take during cold and flu season, and that I had picked up from the pharmacy, tossed onto the living room table and COMPLETELY forgotten about? That Flovent?
I felt like a moron.
My father DIED from a massive asthma attack, just like his mother before him. I know better than to fuck around with this particular illness but I had to take care of Amira of course, and then I had to hurry up and get back to work, and then my dog developed an infected nipple so I had to take her to the vet and have that checked out and...
Feel free to insert any other bullshit excuse you can think of right here.
NO MORE.
No more taking my own health and well-being for granted. No more coming in last place in my own life.
This was the wake up call I so desperately needed.
It's time to start taking care of me.
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