My Story: Theresa and Severe Asthma

Theresa is a musician and respiratory therapist. In this video, she shares how severe asthma has impacted her life, both the good and the bad.

Transcript

00:00

[MUSIC PLAYING] To find my asthma zen, [LAUGHS] or, you know, just take time for myself, I am a musician,

00:07

and I play a lot of instruments, specifically guitar. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:13

Asthma has really impacted my life. And as I became an adult, about the age of 25

00:19

is when I crossed into the severe-asthma category. If I had to tell people one thing about asthma that they really don't know much about

00:27

it is that it's not contagious. You know, it's a lifelong disease that kind of ebbs and flows, and we have flare-ups.

00:34

For me personally, I've had quite a few pretty severe asthma flare-ups, where I was in and out of the hospital just

00:40

struggling to try to literally, feel like I'm getting my head above water. So it just takes time and a lot of help from my medical team.

00:49

Asthma has made me a lot stronger of a person than I ever thought I ever could be because, you know, I'm going through it, and I'm able to really relate

00:56

with other people that I take care of, as well as my own friends and family because I know what they may be experiencing

01:03

when they're struggling to breathe, and I can help them through it. For me, choosing my career path as a respiratory therapist

01:10

was a very, very easy career choice. When I was a child, my parents sent me to this summer camp for kids with asthma.

01:16

The years that I went to that camp literally changed my life. I love to be able to relate with people and advocate for asthma, and other respiratory diseases

01:26

as well, but being that I have asthma, being an asthma advocate is really where my passion is. Being proactive with asthma is super, super important

01:35

because you have to advocate for yourself. We have to really pay attention to our own bodies and let our doctors know when something's not right

01:44

and we need to make a change. [MUSIC PLAYING]