My First Asthma Attack

Around the age of four years old, I was on my way home after playing outside for quite a while during the cold winter season in Vladivostok, Russia. I ran home with joy, with the hope and excitement that as soon as I’d reach the kitchen I could have a cup of hot and very strong black tea with lemon and sugar. As soon as I reached the third flight of stairs, I began to feel the clogging that was building up in my throat from running so fast. I still had one more to go, at the disadvantage that I have lived on the fourth floor. My mom warmly greeted me by the door knowing ahead that I was all drenched. She put me in a hot bath, fed me with hot soups and liquids for the possibility of me getting sick. Afterward through all of the warmness from her I went to bed around the 10th hour.

During the night, around 3:00am, I remember losing my breath. I had no idea what caused it. I woke up from frustration and the pale hands that were taking a grip around my throat. I jumped out of bed before completely losing oxygen and ran into my mom and dad’s room, which, thankfully, was next to mine. I shook them and then the last thing I remember as both of them woke up, I fell right in front of their presence and lost consciousness. Calling the ambulance was my dad’s idea than, while my mom picked me up and took me out on the balcony to get some fresh air. I started to breathe about three minutes later after my parents got up. My dad shoved two fingers down my throat and spread them equally giving me the opportunity to take a deep breath.

After ariving at the hospital. The doctors didn’t even take the opportunity to diagnose properly and said flatly and as straight as they could that I have asthma. They also promised my parents that I won’t ever be able to run and play with other children because the pressure from running will cause me to suffocate and loose oxygen too quickly. I dealt with it for a month when this one perfect evening my mom and dad decided to have a night out and left me with my grandparents. I caught a cold a week earlier. But what could a cold possibly do? I though to my self “nothing”. Because I wasn’t after all coughing but neither was I feverish, so I can’t have an asthma attack again. When falling asleep that night at my grandparents seemed pretty realistic to not have another asthma attack my grandparents put me to sleep, walked out of the room shutting the door and sitting in the kitchen talking and having tea. I fell asleep. Remembering only 30 minutes later I started coughing. That cough was like a dry bark of a dog. It was very painful, but as a kid i though it would go away and I’ll fall asleep again when all of a sudden my throat clogged up, no cough penetrating it at that moment I couldn’t say anything because I couldn’t breathe again, just like that night a month ago.

No one could hear me, especially with the room door being shut. There was a glass cup that was standing next to me on a coffee table. I took that cup and I had no other choice but to through it against the hard brick wall to get my grandparents attention to come into the room. My grandpa was the first to enter and seeing me even more pale than ever before I turned blue because of the lack of oxygen. He took a pen and pierced my throat, making a separate air passage leading from the bronchial tube and out. There was blood, and lots of it. I was laying in his hands. My grandma calling my mom for the emergency and alarming the hospital, the same one but asking for a different doc this time. I was going to have to wait 20 minutes for the ambulance. The snow in Russia is rough, especially the blizzards and the rough and coarse roads. It was hard to get to most locations. But I had to wait. I had to be patient and sit on the couch covered in my own blood with a sharp ball pen sticking out of my throat. It was pretty amazing at the time how I could just ignore the pain.

Later when I got a prescribed treatment. Which was sitting on a course of treating antibiotics, I became allergic to penicillin. Because the doctors had overdosed it through out the treatment. Later though my mom found another kind of treatment. Her name was Dr. Rose. She was my new doctor who suggested that I moved to a warmer climate and have a Vibrating Massage Therapy. The vibration tool that she used was a regular electronic device that people these days use to massage certain muscles, joint pain and etc. She placed the little machine on certain spots which represented the nerve tension. Where the nerves mostly collect causing pain and headaches. I wondered what it had to do with reliving asthma. After the asthma cure I never had a problem after the age of 6 ever again. I could run, play and drink ONLY warm water though. Because if i had a cup of cold water than it would cause my lymphs to swell and may bring my asthma back. I could still eat ice-cream though just in little portions.