Fear

I Thought i would blog today as i am just sat here with lots of things going through my head so thought it would be nice to write them down to hopefully clear my head a bit....

Today and the last few days have been terrible health wise, my chest is so so tight and i feel i am suffocating in sputum.
Today it really did reach a really horrible scary stage, i was woken up by crippling pain shooting through my lungs, it felt as if i was being sliced slowly through the length of each rib, it was causing sharp shooting pains and causing me to make sounds i wasn't even aware i was doing until they were coming out my mouth, a kind of deep groaning sound mixed with high pitched squeals.
I grabbed my inhalers but couldn't get enough air in my lungs to even inhale the medication, i decided to instead have a nebuliser of mucoclear to try and shift the sputum but it was making my airways tighter and the cough was unbearable with the pain.
I was panicking and started hyperventilating through pure panic, it was scary, i started to feel dizzy and sick. I then tried to have some heated saline through my nebuliser to try and sooth the airways but again it made no improvement, more panic was setting in the cough wouldn't stop and i was in so much pain.I text my friend Clare and said i wouldn't be able to meet her in Starbucks, she seemed quite worried about me as 20 minutes later she turned up with more medication for me, she has asthma so knows the signs of restricted airways more than anybody. She gave me atrovent and salbutamol nebs which eased my breathing after about 20 minutes, i started to calm down and feel more settled so i could get air in now, my heart raced at 140 beats per minute but this was mainly a side effect of the inhaled drugs, they also left me very shaky which again is a very common side affect, just slightly uncomfortable.
My limbs have felt really heavy all day, they felt alien to me like i wasn't in control of them like there was a lead weight in them and i couldn't lift them, once i was breathing better and after a hefty dose of steroids, 60mg i dosed off to sleep.
I didn't know but in the 2 hours i was asleep Clare had left to go to the chemist to get me a new blood glucose monitor, i had lost mine a few weeks back and never got round to replacing it, naughty i know!!! ..steroids are known to make blood sugars high so she was determined to keep an eye on my sugars beings as i doubled my usual 30mg dose of steroid.
I normally would never have taken drugs not prescribed to me through fear of side effects but i was desperate, i was so scared, i could feel my lungs shutting off as my airways were tightening, the panic had set in and i would have taken anything to stop the pain, the breathlessness and the fear.So anyway when she got back from town she tested my sugars they were reasonable at 7.3 but slightly high as id not eaten a thing all day, my chest felt more settled by now so i had enough breath to think about food so Clare left me with nebulisers to keep me going over the weekend but i think a call to my team is in order Monday as they refuse to believe i have asthmatic symptoms..well today proves i do especially as i responded so well to the medication from Clare, much more response than to heated saline which is what they have given me.
I dont want other mornings to be like this morning, it is completely life limiting, i can never keep plan with friends, the shortness of breath and the pain is debilitating and after the many hours it takes to get my chest to a reasonable standard im far to exhausted to go and bath let alone go out have fun and feel fulfilled daily.
I feel my life switches between pain, medication, extreme fatigue and tiredness then eventually sleep.
I'm a prisoner in my own bedroom even downstairs is off limits as coming back upstairs is more effort than its worth as it takes me 20 mins to recover from the exertion of the stair climb.Im fully compliant with all my medication yet im in this state more often than not, I'm just declining day by day.
My age scares me as in the CF world i am old, average life expectancy is around 30 most people at 24 have had a transplant already or worse yet passed away, i know i must be doing reasonably well as im not even listed for transplant yet but i feel that is coming.
I'm finding it hard to stay positive but i know i have too, because if i dont whats the alternative...death? Death scares me but somehow i feel it looming somewhere in the background and it scares me to my very core.
I can not give up this fight just yet i need to find the strength from somewhere.....somehow