Overcoming Asthma

I knew something was wrong. Mile after mile it became more and more difficult to take a breath in. 

I have been running since third grade; it all started with my mom signing me up for Girls on the Run. For the next few years, I remember only being able to run a couple miles without getting tired, but as I worked up through middle school, I got progressively better. Then the first obstacle hit.

It was the last month of school of my 6th grade year, and I was out at recess playing kickball. I ended up snapping my pinky finger in half at the growth plate and needing surgery. Two pins were placed in my knuckle to keep the broken bones in place. It remained in a cast for almost two months - almost the whole summer. That meant no swimming, no biking, and worst of all, no running. All of you guys reading this are runners, so you know how difficult it can be to bounce back from a two-month break. But eventually, I managed to get through it and back into the swing of things.

8th grade, my last year of middle school, was when the issues with my breathing switched into gear. It was hill day (everyone's favorite, I know) and we had jogged a mile warm-up to a nearby neighborhood that has a killer half mile hill. We split into groups, based on how many hills we were planning on running. I was in the 7-8 hill group, nothing I couldn't handle at the time. It was a workout I had done many times in the past, so I thought nothing of it. We started running up and down and up and down. After running down hill number 4, I started feeling tightness in my chest, almost like my lungs were being crushed by my ribs. I continued to run up hill number 5 (dumb of me to not stop, but this issue did not end there as you will see later in this story). Coming down hill number 5, I ran to my coach who was at the bottom. I was wheezing and couldn't breathe. This had never happened before, so I didn't know how to handle it like I do now. It was one of the scariest things I've ever experienced. You think about yourself in that situation, and you think you'll act a completely different way: calm, regain your breath, and go back to the hills. But it just doesn't happen like that. I put my arms over my head to open my chest up, which seemed to help. I went to the doctor, and they just gave me a rescue inhaler to use before every run, which seemed to help, at first.

Then the summer of 2017 came along. I was heading into my freshman year of high school, and obviously planned on running cross country. I have already been going for 6 years, why stop now? I started summer practice, every Monday-Thursday from 8-10am. I loved it. Popsicles after every practice, and sometimes slushies if the boys were willing to share. I'd had no incidents with my asthma, so my running life couldn't get any better. 

Two months later, it was nearing the start of school. Late August came around, which meant the annual time trial was underway. Both the boy's team and the girl's team would run a 5k timed race, and that would be our starting point for the season. About halfway through the race, I started feeling that similar tightness in my chest that I had felt during my 8th-grade season. I thought nothing of it since I had taken my inhaler before starting the time trial. Along with all the summer training, I was so prepared and capable of completing this. I continued running, and I continued to feel worse and worse. Breathing was becoming harder to do. I came up the hill back out of the track towards the football stadium and suddenly started seeing black spots. That was when I knew something was wrong. I was depriving myself of oxygen and wasn't aware of the severity of the situation. I ran over to a team parent and explained what was happening, and he had me sit down and ran to his car to grab me a water bottle. I unfortunately was unable to complete my first ever high school time trial, and I was devastated. 

I went to the doctor a week or so later, and got the worst news I thought imaginable: "You may not be able to competitively run again." I burst into tears. This sport that I had fallen in love with, years ago, was just snatched out from under me. The only thing I had. Running makes me feel happy. It keeps me from going out of my mind. Running keeps me sane, and I had just lost it. 

I was out for two weeks, unable to run until my doctors appointment with the cardiologist. They thought that my asthma attacks had something to do with my heart, since my family has a history of bad hearts. I got an EKG, and everything came back normal. I was so relieved to hear the four words I'd been waiting to hear: "You can run again."

This whole unfortunate asthma situation ruined my life - or so I thought. At first, I believed my life would be over, but then I realized that I would be okay. I would learn to cope with asthma. It took a few weeks to adjust to a new inhaler, which my parents chased me around the course with at meets, just in case I needed it (which I did, multiple times). But hey, I learned to live with it. And I am okay now. Yeah, asthma sucks. It really does. But it also taught me how lucky I am to be able to do what I do. The situation could have been much worse, or ended very differently. I am just so grateful that it did end the way it did, and that I have such amazing teammates and coaches and parents and friends who helped me to overcome my obstacle.

- Annie Farrell ( @anniefarrelll )