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
[MUSIC PLAYING] To find my asthma zen, [LAUGHS] or, you know, just take time for myself, I am a musician,
and I play a lot of instruments, specifically guitar. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Asthma has really impacted my life. And as I became an adult, about the age of 25
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
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.
For me personally, I've had quite a few pretty severe asthma flare-ups, where I was in and out of the hospital just
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.
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
with other people that I take care of, as well as my own friends and family because I know what they may be experiencing
when they're struggling to breathe, and I can help them through it. For me, choosing my career path as a respiratory therapist
was a very, very easy career choice. When I was a child, my parents sent me to this summer camp for kids with asthma.
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
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
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
and we need to make a change. [MUSIC PLAYING]
