The Hot New Friendship Gauge: Asthma!

For context: I have zero resentment towards any friend mentioned in this post. It’s just an interesting thing I noticed throughout my life. Take heed! I am not a bitter person. Just someone who likes documenting the ways things shake out.

I’ve had asthma for a long time. Okay, kind of. I had it as a kid (many a recess spent indoors, thanks to Utah’s inversion in the wintertime), and then it seemed to go away when I was in middle school. Then, after getting covid for the first time, it came back in a roaring fury. I’ve spent years working hard to get my lungs back to a better place, and thanks to a combo of my inhaler and a little bit of an overspecialization in cardio, I’m a lot healthier than I was, lung-wise.

But! I still get asthma attacks. Not as frequently as I used to, but the point being that when I do, they’re a very embarrassing affair. Once I get past the whole not-breathing bit, I usually have to sit down for a while, so my body can stop trembling like a leaf and my heart can get back to a normal bpm. Naturally, I get these attacks when I’m out and about sometimes, and I’m almost always out and about with friends. So, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the three-ish most memorable asthma attacks, and how my friends at the time reacted.

The Low End – aka how an asthma attack made me realize that some friendships were over

When I was about 16, I was invited by a group of friends to go up to salt lake for a birthday party. These were friends I had known for years, but with the exception of one of them, they had all moved into new parts of their lives. This was my first time hanging out with them in a while, and it also made me realize why it was the last.

We were thrifting—or I should say that they were thrifting, because I wasn’t really in the market for clothes and they were shopping for like XXS anyway, and I don’t really fit in things below a medium. But we ended up all crammed into one big changing room, and while they were chatting, I ended up having an asthma attack. (I get them a lot during seasonal temperature shifts, and this was right between summer and fall.)

I was leaned there, struggling to breathe, partially collapsed against the wall of the changing room. I was fumbling with my inhaler (back in the days where I was smart and kept it in my jeans pocket, even though it bulged out and looked weird), and you know what?

Not one of them noticed.

After I had gotten back to a stage of being able to breathe, I just sort of sat there and then thought. Well. Alright. I think that’s that.

And it was. So there you have a low point for sure; but maybe not the lowest. Oh, no. Because the lowest was with the nightmare roommates of my freshman year, because they had the audacity to be annoyed.

The Lowest Low: Roommate Edition

It was the first dance of the school year at BYU, the one that signaled the end of orientation. I didn’t know anyone yet — and if we’re being honest, I was blind to the horrors that were to come in my apartment — so I went to the dance with them. I didn’t know there was going to be a dance, mind you, so I didn’t have my inhaler with me. (That is something I’ve yet to get better at, by the way. Totally my fault. Many of these attacks are quite preventable.)

We danced, danced, and danced some more. I warned them multiple times that we needed to take a break soon or I would probably have some issues. (Listen. I know that I should have just left on my own. But making friends in college is hard, and I wasn’t about to miss out on what had, at the time, potential). They waved me off, and like a fool, I stayed. We stayed till the dance was wrapping up, and then they finally left with me.

We made it out to the hallway of the Wilk before the entire horizon jumped up to meet me, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor, vision blacking out, head spinning, and lungs staunchly refusing to give me any oxygen. This was one of the worst asthma attacks of my life: I could barely choke in any air at all, sitting there on the floor while the world turned into a janky carnival spin ride around me, and the whole time my roommates stood there and looked annoyed.

They didn’t help me. No, the people who came to check on me were strangers from another dorm, who sat with me and helped me breathe through it. I don’t even remember her name, but I remember that she sat there with her hand on my back leading me through breathing exercises until my vision came back and my heart rate left the hundreds.

A Gentle High End: High School

My friend group in high school was a very chill affair, all things considered. I never got roped into any drama. I was, in some ways, a little less important to them than they were to me, but that’s to be expected with a large friend group who had mostly known each other already for years, and graciously transplanted me into it.

This asthma attack also took place at a birthday party, albeit one in a friend’s basement. The attack itself was quick, but the adrenaline crash after was pretty much catastrophic. I ended up lying on the floor, quietly trying not to ruin the vibe of the party around me while I had jello limbs that shook like I was inventing a new, compressed version of jazz hands.

But luckily I had Clara there, and Clara took it upon herself to grab me by the ankle and drag me around the party as we switched between activities. I might have gotten some carpet burns here and there (all in the name of inclusion!) but the important thing was, I wasn’t annoying. Clara didn’t mind yanking me about to make sure I wasn’t left behind, which I do indeed appreciate.

At this point in my life, asthma attacks had solidified themselves as something totally embarrassing. (They kind of still are.) Normally I’m a very high-energy person who loves to talk to people, move around a lot, and have fun. But every once in a while, the magical combination of too much dancing or a sudden change in temperature or even just dust can turn me into someone who trembles like they’re getting shocked and has to stare at their watch’s heart rate monitor function on the ground for like half an hour.

But, the important thing is, it does come with a new high point.

The High Point: The Party

The high point happened tonight. (Today..? I’m writing this at like 2:30 in the morning. I don’t know).

I went with Ruby (of the Orphans), Kenzi (of the Orphans), and two others (not Orphans but lovely people) to a party hosted by one of Ruby’s friends. We were there as the facepainting crew, which was funny because none of us had any training in that.

But, the important thing was that I forgot my inhaler. Again. The high point had already started, though: thanks to me helpfully not telling anyone the last time I’d gotten an asthma attack at a concert, Ruby was immediately worried about that fact.

Then the worry got worse because the party was in a warehouse, and that warehouse was pumped full of the most fog I have ever seen come out of a fog machine in my life. The air was so thick with it I could barely see the colors of the face paint tray in front of me, and breathing was immediately painful.

Ruby spent the night eyeing me, warning the parents of the host about my asthma, and insisting that I actually tell her when I inevitably got an attack this time. I actually managed to push it to a good hour and a half into the party before I realized that inhaling wasn’t putting any air into my lungs and it was getting pretty hard to keep my head up.

So, I left the station (and pointed my leaving out to Ruby, I might add) and sat outside the party in the grass, heaving and wheezing, and what have you.

It wasn’t a very bad attack, but it wasn’t super easy either. I was shaking so much people kept asking me if I was cold (I wasn’t), and my heart rate had jumped from 76 to 109 in less than a minute, which was pretty much not normal.

But what was really wild was the fact that who should appear but Ella (one of the non-Orphans who is delightful and grabbed my stuff for me as I stumbled out of the party) and Ruby, bearing a water bottle and other supplies.

They sat with me while I breathed through the worst of it, (I’m very grateful Ruby didn’t see the part where my head wasn’t staying properly upright), and then she moved us to her car, where she sat with me until I could prove that my heart rate was back in a healthy range. I did the only impressive feat of the night by showing her that I can force my heart from 98 to 75 in about a second and a half, and she reluctantly allowed me to go back in and finish out the party.

And you know what? That was wild, and not because of the attack. I’ve never had someone abandon their post at a party they’re doing as a favor to someone just to check on me. I’ve never had someone notice I’m having an attack like that, much less in a crowded and ear-shattering college party. (The police were called. It was a whole thing, apparently.) I’ve never had someone insist on waiting until I was ready to go back, and I’ve never had someone so transparently and happily worry for my asthmatic wellbeing like that before.

It’s kind of amazing.

There isn’t a super profound point to this post. I’m not a kicked dog with my older friends, especially not over something as specific as but how will you react to my asthma attacks that I try not to draw attention to??

I just think it’s a lovely look at the contrast that has come into my life. I’ve never felt as loved, wanted, or as part of a group of friends as I have with the Orphans. Having Ruby aggressively worry for my wellbeing all night was a bizarre but lovely feeling, and she had the audacity to apologize for it afterwards. PLEASE.

So there’s the end: somehow, despite it all, I’ve ended up surrounded by some really great people. I hope they know how much I love them back.

And, to Ruby: I promise I’ll start setting reminders to bring my inhaler when we go places. I swear.