I woke up this morning feeling better than I did yesterday. My asthma is still flaring, but my chest is not as tight as it was yesterday. The other thing that I have noticed is that my whole body seems more relaxed than it did yesterday. When I cannot breathe properly, I get agitated and restless. That is how I was feeling most of yesterday. I kept walking around and moving to relieve the agitation I was feeling.

If I can keep things moving in this positive direction, I might be able to get through this flare without a trip to the hospital. That is what I am hoping for anyway.

I probably tend to wait longer than I should to go to the hospital. I always feel as if I need to try everything I can at home before I make a trip to the ER. For some reason, it feels like I am wasting the time of the ER staff, with my – silly – breathing problems. I know logically, not being able to breathe well is something I should have checked out earlier than I usually do, but I still resist that ER trip.

It seems like every year – this time of year – I have asthma flares. I did not always have an asthma diagnosis. It was around this time of year – about three years ago – that I was diagnosed. That was my very first hospital stay for something other than having a baby. I am working hard to keep from ending up in the hospital this winter. However, I am also trying to be rational about it and acknowledge that there are times when I might just need to go.

Around the time I was diagnosed with asthma, my depression kicked into high gear. I do not think the asthma is solely responsible for triggering the depression, but I do think it may have exacerbated it. I did not handle my asthma diagnosis well, and became convinced that my life was going to be forever, negatively affected by it. This attitude was reinforced by the fact that my doctor and I had such a difficult time getting the asthma under some sort of control. Now, when I have an asthma flare, my mental and emotional attitude about it is much different. I believe having a better attitude about living with asthma has helped to keep it from having as negative of an impact on my life as I initially thought it would.