Personal Narrative: Asthma

Task analysis is the process of obtaining information about a job by determining the duties, tasks, and activities involved and the knowledge, skills, and abilities required in performing each task. There can be broken down into six

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.

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.

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. Furthermore, I began succeeding playing sports, and grateful for Dr.

The day I was born my family member asked me, “she’s coughing her lungs out, is she okay?”. But they were not necessarily wrong” at the time of my birth, I looked weak and was having shortness of breath. However, the doctors were unsure and believed at that time that my asthma was just temporary and would go away overtime, however it did not. Slowly, as time progressed one day I had a moment where I was having trouble breathing. I coughed and coughed and could not catch me breathe. There I was born, a premature baby, March 21st 1998. Although, the doctors had notified my parents that premature babies worry are at higher risk of asthma.

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.

Amy Parsons is a 16-year-old who states that she has periods when she experiences severe coughing described as dry, hacking, and non-productive. Amy reports shortness of breath and cough after swimming during summers and cough along with occasional wheezing during fall and winter months when she swims competitively. She has no known allergies, no history of surgeries or hospitalizations, and no chronic illnesses. Amy’s physical exam is unremarkable but she reports four to five colds per year. The test results for Amy’s the peak expiratory flow rates (PEF) are as follow: 290/310/320 with her predicted at 453. The following paragraphs will identify and explain the pathophysiology involved in Amy’s case.

In case study three, Emmanuel is a 5 year old with a history of asthma for the past two years. Emmanuel lives in an urban community-housing complex, which is dusty with cockroaches and mold. After going to bed, Emmanuel woke up wheezing, coughing, and very anxious. As Emmanuel became more distressed, he became restless and was unable to use his inhaler. He began to tire with diminishing wheezes noted, as his attempts to breathe lessened due to respiratory fatigue.

Instead of being confined with asthma I would usually spend my days outside and fight. I told myself that asthmatics are stronger because we know what it feels like to not have air, to stare at the sky and wait for our air ducts to open, to be aware that we are still trying to grasp the slightest oxygen that would warm up our bodies. ‘I am an almighty god’ I chanted in my head. Even if there were medications, such as albuterol, I despised them because I believed that medications can internally destroy you. My rebellious mind discouraged supplements that ‘suppress’ my asthma symptoms. I did not believe that medications would permanently help a person; you would feel deteriorated the next day, creating a vicious cycle.

You must being in a hurry to know how to stop asthma because it has been a great budden to you so as others. but before i go straight to the remedies you will agree with me that we need to know all about asthma and how it works. if you already have ideas of this you can skip the article to the part you need which comes to be the almighty remedies.

Caleb is a 10-year-old male here today with his mother with complaints of a cold and a sore throat.

Relieving: Has been using albuterol more often than prescribed has been using every 2-3 hours consistently instead of the prescribed every 4-6 hours as needed. Reports the albuterol provides relief for

My son was born with a severe upper respiratory disease. He had to undergo several years of intensive treatment and on occasion, surgery from birth to 12 years of age.    Consequently, respiratory disease is an illness that affects everyone in our household to some degree. However, my son's battle with the disease was life threatening and his livelihood was seriously impacted by this disease.