Asthma Personal Statement

Asthma is the leading cause of chronic illness in children and is responsible for nearly 10% of the Emergency Room visits for children <15 year of age. It occurs in as many as 10%-12% of children in the United States and is gradually growing. Asthma can begin at any age , but most children have their first symptoms by age five. Because Camp Wapiti is for children ages 8-13 exclusively, this report will focus primarily on childhood asthma.

I have always generally known, who I am, however one day I began questioning it all. For as long as I can recall, I have been very active as well as healthy. As a child, I was involved in every sport there was. Then once I reached high school this all was ripped away from me and I felt has if I had been stripped of my identity.

R.J. is a 15-year-old boy with a history of asthma diagnosed at age 8. His asthma episodes are triggered by exposure to cats and various plant pollens. He has been using his albuterol inhaler 10 to 12 times per day over the last 3 days and is continuing to wheeze. He normally needs his inhaler only occasionally (2 or 3 times per week). He takes no other medications and has no other known medical conditions. Physical examination reveals moderate respiratory distress with a respiratory rate of 32, oximetry 90%, peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) 60% of predicted, and expiratory wheezing.

I have had a variety of experiences that contributed to my overall motivation to become a health care professional. My passion for medicine began when I was an adolescent being evaluated and taken care of by my pediatrician, Dr. Gonzalez. As a kid, I loved being active and playing several sports. However, I consistently had shortness of breath, wheezing, and tightness in my chest during my sports competitions, which my parents quickly noticed. I visited Dr. Gonzalez who knew from the symptoms and experience that I have asthma and prescribed both an inhaler and nebulizer for me to prevent further complications which allow me an opportunity to continue playing sports. I began succeeding playing all sports, and was extremely grateful for her medical knowledge, support, and advice. I was ecstatic knowing that she was going to ensure I stayed healthy and also become successful in various ways. . In middle school, I began looking into the health care careers to explore my options. Now that I am older, I envision myself in Dr. Gonzalez’s position one day. I know I have all the right qualities to be an amazing, caring children doctor.

My most memorable experiences came from volunteering at the Amazing Grace Foundation, one that fosters Autistic children. Interacting with them required compassion and patience, two qualities of mine which were greatly strengthened. Lastly, I learned the meaning of perseverance and dedication when I committed myself to completing a research project in four weeks. Along with my colleague and mentor, I studied the relationship between in-hospital mortality and the type of acute myocardial infarction in the Puerto Rican population. My first endeavor into epidemiological research was very enlightening and it’s something I would like to

Breathing is a vital process for every human. Normal breathing is practically effortless for most people, but those with asthma face a great challenge. During an asthma attack, breathing is hampered, making it difficult or even impossible for air to flow through the lungs. Asthma is an increasingly common problem, and has become the most common chronic childhood disease. At least 17 million Americans suffer from it(1), and although it can be fatal, it is usually not that severe(4). There is no cure for asthma, but with proper care, it can usually be controlled.

The feeling of a lead brick on your chest, desperately needing air but unable to draw a breath and the feeling of drowning in the very substance you need to survive. Shaking hands squeeze a canister and suddenly there is a rush of medication, an odd taste and then the brick gets lighter and lighter as gradually more oxygen comes in and once again air is flowing in and out properly. For an individual with asthma, an inhaler feels like the most amazing invention ever to grace the human mind or hands. Without the medicine stored in the tiny canister, life as is known by the average non-asthmatic would be but a dream for myself and around 25.7 million other people (Akinbami and Johnson, 2012). The idea of inhaling medicine to cure ailments started

On the eve of my seventeenth birthday, I was having a birthday party with my family, and I was not feeling well. My asthma had been bad for the past few months, but seemed to be worsening. I even had to leave my party for a little bit to take an aerosol treatment. That seemed to help, but only for about thirty minutes. I started to wheeze again, and I was not able to catch my breath. I have had asthma all of my life and have been in the hospital several times for exacerbations. After my family had left, my parents knew I needed to go to the emergency room. I took my rescue inhaler right before my parents and I left to go to the emergency room. We ended up going to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Once I arrived, there was a long line ahead of me, but a triage nurse listened to my wheezing and sent me straight to the front. The nurses seemed panicked when they took me back to a critical care section of the ER. When I got in a room, I knew it was serious because there were five nurses and two doctors. I ended up staying at Children’s Hospital for a week and being on oral steroids for four months. Because of my asthma, I missed a lot of school during my junior year. I was on oral steroids for a long period of time, so it began to weaken my immune system.

Now, by this time my asthma had disappeared completely. For years now here in the US I have had no asthma attacks like the ones I used to have in Cuba, and for all practical purposes I was no longer an asthmatic. I was in good shape, but the concern was still there, especially for my mother, who had suffered through my asthma attacks alongside me in Cuba. The thinking for us was that perhaps the 14 hours at sea during the 1980 Mariel trip, and all that vomiting I did somehow had “cleaned me out” (that is what my mother used to say), and the sea had taken my asthma away. Looking back, what I think probably happened was that in Cuba we were living in very polluted surroundings, and for allergic people like me the air pollution exasperated me to the point of making me asthmatic. All that Hollin (soot) Grandmother Hortensia used to have to clean all over the house every day in La Habana was an indication of the pollution of the city air, pollution which at nighttime as the air cooled would condense further in the lower atmosphere, making people like me suffer asthma attacks. Here in the US, the air was a lot cleaner, and thus I was no longer asthmatic.

Throughout the years knowledge about asthma has grown, as well as treating it effectively. Over 300 million people are said to be victims of this disease with another 100 million being estimated by 2025 globally (Currie and Baker, 2012). In the United Kingdom, asthma is increasingly becoming one of the leading disease affecting individual of different age, ethnicity, race and gender. British Lung Foundation (2011) stated that it is more common at childhood stage and can also occur at a later age. According to Asthma UK (2014) asthma in men is less prevalence than it is in women and children troubled more with asthma than adults. Recent data in the UK shows that in children and occupational asthma in adult is on the rise with an estimate

I never thought of it as a real problem until then. That night, I had a sleepover at my friend’s house when it happened. I woke up with a sharp feeling in my chest. I couldn’t do anything but writhe in agony and there was nobody I could call to help me because everyone was asleep and I was hurting too much to call out to somebody. A gnawing pain was getting harder and harder to handle. I sat there trying to breathe, when I realized what was going on. An asthma attack was occuring. I was dangling on a precipice of disorientation. I desperately needed to drag myself over the my bag and get my inhaler. I couldn’t stand up because I was lost in a never-ending sea of suffering. I couldn’t locate my inhaler after searching for what seemed like hours.

Asthma is one of the most prevalent respiratory diseases. It is a chronic condition with recurring, exacerbations characterized by bronchial hyper-responsiveness and inflammation leading to airflow obstruction (Cabana, et al., 2014). Over time, the chronic inflammation may cause permanent damage to the airway (Wenzel, 2012). Asthma affects people of all ages but typically begins in childhood (Wenzel, 2012). This paper will explore the pathophysiological mechanisms of chronic asthma and acute asthma exacerbation. Additionally, it will cover how age and behavior can impact the pathophysiology and influence the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Finally, mind maps will illustrate, visually, the epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment of both the chronic and acute phase of asthma.

Your airway has smooth muscles around the outside of the airway tubes also known as bronchial tubes. The tubes are open allowing air to flow freely; during an asthma attack those muscles begin to tighten that is called a bronchospasm restricting the airflow. During an asthma attack the lungs also become inflamed and the mucus in the tubes begins to become thicker and builds up, this makes it even more difficult for air to pass through the opening of the tubes. With the airway being restricted and the mucus build up causes a wheezing sound and shortness of breath and difficulty in inhaling and exhaling air (WebMD).

- Another initiative of Asthma Australia, Asthma Kids is a fun, interactive website to teach children with asthma about their condition.

In the mid-summer of 2000, I was "Twin B" born at 38 weeks. When I was a-week old, I developed a high temperature fever. After changing my formula four times, my parents found out that I was allergic to milk proteins. A few weeks later, I developed a cough that literally took my breath away, and I would cough so much that my face would turn blue. Doctors had given me several types of nebulizer treatments in order to deliver a water vapor medicine into my lungs, which did not work. Then, I lost my voice due to vocal-cord paralysis, which tied ends to a whooping cough. As a result, I was hospitalized for more than a month. When I came home, I still had no voice to cry like a normal baby. Thus began my condition of asthma, evidently inherited