Breathing Deeply: My Life With Cystic Fibrosis

I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.




Santa Ana season has arrived. Yuck. I wish I could just hibernate until all the dusty, dry air goes away. The most frustrating thing about this time of year is that it really impacts my sleep. During the night, one side of my sinuses will decide to plug up while the drains itself at an inexplicable pace. Then the two sides switch their roles, seemingly in an attempt to "one up" each other. Back and forth it goes until I either (a) get so frustrated that I take a benadryl to dry it up, or (b) just wakeup and start my day.

Yesterday I missed work. I had what we refer to as a "snoof" (stuffy nose and post nasal drip) starting on Monday afternoon. By yesterday morning I was a complete mess. I took some meds to control the symptoms, then crawled back in bed so that I wouldn't be wasting any of the energy I was already spending on coughing.

Cough cough cough. Sneeze, sneeze, sneeze...wait for it....another sneeze.

It's the multiple sneezes in rapid fire that convince me that this is asthma and allergies more than anything else. Still, I'm going to keep an eye on things to make sure it doesn't turn into a nasty lung infection.

I hate coughing in the mornings. Sometimes I'm so worn out from it that I want to just crawl back into bed and do nothing for the rest of the day. I have to remind my self that if I can just push through the morning part, chances are I'll be fine by the time I arrive at work. Soon my work schedule will change so that I'll be in the office later in the mornings. I'm not too keen on having to cut back my hours, but I know that it's the right move for where I am in life.