Relative Something

Compared to many people, I am pretty healthy. Compared to people who are perfectly healthy, I’m not doing so well today. The asthma disease which I discovered back in December 2008, when it was required I have a physical to clear me for a trek in the Himalayan mountains, is flaring up significantly. It is now clear that I need to be much more prudent about properly treating this affliction.

I have preferred to gloss over the details of the disease and minimize the impact it has on my life, partly in hopes that I could, by sheer will, dispatch it from interfering with my interests and activities. I’m finding that it doesn’t work that way. This morning I am feeling more pressure to begin the effort to better track my symptoms, and as much as I dislike the prospect, investigate the chance that something in my environment is serving as a trigger. I may need to actually engage in the act of dusting. I may need to remove carpeting, change pillows, kick the cat out, change air filters regularly, and confine myself to air-conditioned environments. Sounds just like me, doesn’t it?

You can see why I have been hesitant to accept the situation.

I can also begin the process of exploring possible connections to foods I eat. Maybe my current flare-up is simply a carry over from a recent cold virus. Two weeks ago, I came home on a Friday with a sore throat and spent the weekend nursing a cold that eventually landed in my lungs. The lungs haven’t recovered since. Meanwhile, all the classic spring allergens have burst forth in full force.

It is possible this flare-up is a result of a combination of several, if not all, of the above. Regardless, it will be logical to return to the prescribed routine of medication to control the ongoing affliction so that I am better positioned to treat flare-ups before they become extreme enough to demand emergency treatment. That, and begin the complicated exercise of identifying specific triggers to allow me to practice the fine art of avoiding that which makes me sick.

It’s too bad for me that just the thought of needing to deal with it all, makes me sick, …if you know what I mean.