Every Breath You Take

At last I have an explanation for the breathing problems I’ve had for the past couple of months. I’d been coughing and wheezing with a sore chest, especially in cold air and during exercise. The problem began after a bad cold, but didn’t go away as the cold got better. The GP gave me one course of antibiotics and then another, but neither had any effect. After this I was sent for a chest X Ray, which identified inflammation in my lungs but didn’t explain why.

I read up on inflammation and respiratory problems and found a series of lung diseases, most of which were related to smoking or industrial chemicals, and all of which were progressive and incurable. I recalled my twenty a day habit as a younger man and the different factory jobs I had tried when seeking my way in the world and became very anxious.

This week I spent several hours in the Regional Respiratory Centre at the City Hospital being given a series of strange tests. I was connected up to a machine via a breathing tube with a clip across my nose. I was told to breathe in deeply then breathe out as hard as I could until I had no breath left, a needle tracing the volume and speed of my breath. I had to do this three times. Then I was led to another room and connected to a different machine that had a bellows which moved as I breathed and a computer screen that registered different aspects of my breathing. I was taken through a programme of tests: my regular breathing, my steady breathing out after a deep breath in, my hard breathing out after a deep breath in, my holding my breath, and so on.

The upshot of all of this is that I have a mild impairment to my airways and have been diagnosed with asthma. I greeted this news with a sigh of relief, so afraid was I of the other lung diseases I had read about. Asthma most often affects children, but adults can develop it too. Late-onset asthma is often associated with allergies, but I’m not aware of having any of the most common of these: pollen, dogs, cats, etc. The last thing they did was take a blood sample from which my allergic reactions to common irritants will be investigated.

Now I have an inhaler and twice a day I breathe deeply in some fine powder that makes me splutter. Already the wheezing, tightness in my chest and coughing has diminished. I don’t like the idea of having to do this every day for the rest of my life, but being able to breathe clearly is such a fundamental need. You don't realise how precious your breathing is until it becomes compromised.