I am the dumbest man alive.

I somehow think that I can “tough out” (read: ignore) a severe allergy to hay combined with asthma. And so here I am, sitting on a medicated breathing machine at 2:40 in the morning because I woke up gasping for breath.

And what am I going to do in less than six hours?

“Tough out” the same circumstances that led to my panicked and strangled asthmatic awakening just a few minutes ago.

I have had asthma all my life, and all my life I have tried to fake that I didn’t when in groups of people. I ran a mile in high school P.E. twice without being able to breathe, just because I didn’t have my inhaler and didn’t want to have to make a big deal about not being able to breathe in front of the other kids in my class. I was seeing stars when I started the next to the last lap, but I would have rather passed out running than stop and go tell the teacher that I forgot my inhaler in my locker.

It’s weird. I usually don’t care what people think of me. But the one thing I seem to care about is one of the things I can’t do anything about. Even odder? I don’t care if people know I have asthsma when I’m not struggling with it.

It’s just in that moment that I can’t breathe, I want to disappear from sight.

And air. I also want air.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 23rd, 2004 at 3:03 am and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.