Day Fifty-Nine: If You Want To Destroy My Sweater

I have asthma. Since I was four. Countless hospital stays, emergency rooms visits, breathing treatments, pills, inhalers, oxygen masks and once Last Rites when they didn't think I would live.


Once I grew up and scored full-time employment, a mere six years ago, I was able to enroll in health care and my asthma seemed to disappear as I was able to afford preventative care, treat my triggers, get weekly allergy shots and annual doctor visits. After all this, I forget sometimes that I have a condition that affects 17 million people in the United States, killing approximately 5,000 every year.

But I was reminded today: as I walked the kid down to her school, large mowers were trimming down the fields of tall grass surrounding the building. Cut grass lay all over the sidewalk and blew in the wind. By the time I got back home, I was wheezing. And I wheezed all day; I felt out of breathe. I still do. Like a stack of bricks on my chest. Or trying to breathe through a pillowcase over my head. So I'm taking a night off because I know my limits. Pull this thread as I walk away ...