Sweet Catastrophe

Wow! I seriously just learned something new from Youtube. I was browsing through videos and came across a bunch about cats with asthma! I had no idea cats could even have asthma!

I’ve looked through a few sites and learned that only about 1% of cats develop asthma, but apparently the number is growing due to pollutants.

If your cat ever experiences something that seemed to you like a really stubborn hairball, only no hairball ever comes, you  should consider discussing this at your next vet appointment. You can glance at some of the videos on Youtube to get a better idea of what a cat experiencing and asthma attack looks like. I’d post some here, but they’re breaking my heart! I know it’s not necessarily a serious problem in every case, but I know how the poor kitties feel!

I developed asthma towards the end of middle school. It was brought on by a combination of my horrible allergies, and my constant exposure to cigarette smoke. I’m one of a handful of people in my family who doesn’t smoke. There’s a definite downside to developing asthma versus being born with it. Many people who are born with asthma eventually grow out of it. The chances of someone who developed asthma later in life ever outgrowing it are slim to none.

I’ve only ever had a few serious attacks in my life. The absolute worst was probably in my Jr. or Sr. year of high school. At the time, for one reason or another, I only had one inhaler. I woke up around 4a.m. wheezing, and reached for my inhaler. At this point, I didn’t really need the inhaler,  but I have a really hard time getting to sleep while I’m wheezing. I found myself panicking when I realized my inhaler wasn’t there.

The trick to avoiding a full attack is to calm yourself down and get control of your breathing. That’s a pretty impossible task when you know that if you can’t do that, you’re pretty screwed. I knew where my inhaler was. It was sitting next to my register at Kmart, so my dad drove me up there, but of course, the store wasn’t open yet. The doors can’t open without a manager key and I had no way to get in contact with whoever was opening that morning! It was absolute torture sitting in front of the store, looking directly at my inhaler through the window. After a four hour attack, I finally got that glorious puff and I was okay again.

I ended up in a world of pain though, later realizing I had strained all the muscles in my chest. Imagine what it would feel like if your lungs were physically bruised. That’s how I felt. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to talk…on top of that, the stress caused some major heartburn so I had do deal with just about every possible symptom of that.

I can’t imagine how helpless a kitty feels while having an attack. For me I know there’s help. I know that at the very least, I can go to a hospital, and after they make me wait a ridiculous amount of time (nope, no quick inhalers to get you out of the way, they don’t give a squat!) they’ll give me an oxygen treatment and send me on my way.

Even though kitties generally cause my asthma to flare up, I’m sending my love to all the asthmatic kitties of the world!