Peak floooows.

The other night when I was in the ER one of the things they sent me home with was (another) peak flow measuring thingy. 

For those of you not familiar with this, which I'm guessing is most, if not all, even my fellow asthmatics, it's basically this gizmo that measures your breathing output. Basically you take in a really deep breath, or as much as you can, and then breathe out as hard and as fast as you can into this thing. The idea behind it is that more than taking deep breaths, asthmatics have difficulty expelling all the air from their lungs. So say the scientists anyway. All I know is I have trouble breathing. Period. 

You're suppose to do it regularly, daily actually, and it works kind of like a heads up on when your asthma is getting bad, before it actually gets really bad. Had I used it regularly, I probably wouldn't have ended up in the ER. 

And since I'm sure you're wondering, my normal peak flow is around 600, when I was in the ER it was 475 and this morning before using my inhaler, I was down to 450. 

They come in all shapes and sizes, but it just so happens that the one the ER gave me was this one

Pause. Take it in. Do you see what I see?

I find it rather curious that this is a) uhh.. how do I say this politely.. okay, there really isn't a way, it is indeed penis shaped. It's penis shaped. And, second, you blow into it. Really hard. As hard as you can. 

Pause.

There's something wrong and completely inappropriate about this. 

I'm 100% positive that it was created by a guy. 100% positive. 

There's a lot of crazies in the ER

Tonight I decided to take a visit to the local ER for my asthma. I won't lie and say it wasn't scary and I wasn't having an anxiety attack the entire time because I totally was. To prove it my blood pressure was 149/92 when I first got there. Usually it 98-106/70-72 .. yeah, just a little whole lot higher than normal. It also doesn't help that there are always a lot of crazies in the ER and I always expect a whole lot of drama. Thank you television for that.

Today was pretty quiet in the ER though.

Anyways, so, the wind today was insanely cold and as you know from reading how I'm allergic to winter, the cold does not make for happy Liz lungs. Not at all. It actually makes my lungs revolt. Did you know that was possible? Well, I'm proof that it is.

Breathing the past couple days has been pretty miserable anyway, but today it just got 10 times worse as soon as I stepped outside. I managed to make it through the day with my inhaler, but it really wasn't getting any better. I made plans to go to the university library and take an exam that I need to make up before classes end tomorrow and then afterwards I was going to stop by the ER. But, as I was pulling out of my driveway I realized just how ludicrous that sounds and went straight to the ER instead.

See? I have a brain sometimes.

It really was a pretty quick trip and I only had to hang around for a few hours. I expected to be a lot longer, full of chest x-rays and what not. That way they make more money, ya know? But no- no chest x-rays needed, so I just hung out waiting.

That's me just hanging out waiting for one of my two nurses. Yes, I had two. One was just a nurse, and the other was a respiratory nurse. 

I was given a breathing treatment and quickly found breathing to be a little easier. And while it's suppose to last 6-8 hours, it did not as breathing once again is strained. Better, but still strained. 

After another hour or so of waiting (which by the way was still the quickest ER visit known to man) I was on my way home with 2 more prescriptions. This time I'm back on prednisone, again, which is enough to make me cry in and of itself and deserves it's own post; and also Qvar, which I've never taken let along heard of in my entire life, and is an inhaled corticosteroid that I begin taking after I'm done with the prednisone.

Here's to hoping this is the worst of it!