OK, this is not strictly about gardening, but it does relate. Bear with me and you will see how to connect the dots.

As a lifetime sufferer of asthma, I find myself drawn to research and to stories about children with asthma. My knowledge of asthma, and the desire to tell children who have it that there is something that will help them,  prompted me to write a novel for young adults about it — Breathing Room,  published in 1993 by Royal Fireworks Press, which received the Texas Institute of Letters' best book for children award.

The theme of Breathing Room is that asthma doesn't have to rule your life. This is an important message for asthmatic children to hear repeatedly, but adults in their lives — parents, grandparents, guardians, teachers, counselors, doctors, nurses, etc. — have to help back up the notion that children can get control over their asthma. 

Medicine that controls asthma is a relatively new development. The disease, which is inflammation of the airway that restricts breathing, pretty much did rule my childhood. There were many sick days for me and high medical bills for my parents. I lived for the outdoors, loved animals, and enjoyed running, playing, riding horses and climbing trees. But at certain times of the year, or times of the day, or at night (especially at night),  the smallest activity could knock me on my backside. A cedar Christmas tree ruined one Christmas Eve for my family. Stuffed animals had to go. But even inactive in a dust-free home, I often could not breathe. My parents struggled to find answers. Allergy tests revealed that I was allergic to practically everything that moved or grew, and even things that did neither.

Doctors began a routine of allergy shot therapy that lasted for years. My father learned to give me shots weekly, which helped somewhat, and I am on allergy therapy to this day. But my asthma was not managed until one of many allergists I have known prescribed a preventive inhaler and showed me how to use it. I believe now as I did then that it was a miracle drug.

So I am dismayed, in 2011, to see both adults and children who don't know about this miracle. The only reason that I can think of for this is lack of key information. And, perhaps, the expense of the medicine. 

By the time I wrote Breathing Room, my asthma was managed. The inhalers I use to manage it are not the same as "rescue" inhalers. Those are medicines that open the airways immediately when you are having an attack. Corticosteroids, which I take, are designed to prevent an attack. Although I always keep a rescue inhaler, most of them expire before I can use them more than once or twice.

New types of inhalers have come out since my first introduction to them. I've used several kinds. But the bottom line is that they prevent the attacks that chronic asthma sufferers experience. They make you feel well. In fact, I once believed that my asthma was "cured" because I had not had an attack in years. So I delayed filling a prescription, only to find out quickly that not only was my asthma NOT cured, but that I had been extremely foolish to think so. 

Fast forward to 2011. More people have asthma now. While I knew almost no one else who had it when I was a child, now I regularly read and hear about children suffering from it. A former colleague had asthma and used a deadly over-the-counter spray to relieve his symptoms. When I told him about my preventive inhaler, he replied that nothing ever worked for him.

How many others believe that? The Centers for Disease Control say there are 17.5 million "non-institutionalized" adults in the United States with asthma and more than seven million children. We all probably know someone with asthma. So, if you know a child — or even an adult — with uncontrolled asthma that is ruling his or her life, will you please tell that person that it doesn't have to be that way?
 
For the stalwarts who stuck with this essay to see if it really DID relate to gardening, here is the connection: I would not be a gardener if it were not for my asthma medicine. I would not have dogs. I would not be able to hike routinely. I might not be a writer because it's pretty hard to do anything when you are struggling to breathe. I might even be dead, because uncontrolled asthma does kill people. It is bad for the heart and other organs. 

One last note for researchers studying the effects of inhaled steroids on children: I am glad you are looking at the side effects of long-term use of these medicines on children, and I hope you eventually find a cure for asthma. But please do keep in mind that most asthmatic children would probably trade several inches in height for being able to breathe well enough to walk up a flight of stairs.  And most adults would probably greet the news of osteoporosis with the same attitude I did. I can strengthen my bones — and my lungs — if only I can breathe.