My Life as an Asthma Mom

            We live at an elevation around 4,000 feet. So when we decided to go to Moab with all the other tourists and hike up to the world famous Delicate Arch, I wasn't too worried. It's about the same elevation as where I live now. I have hiked Delicate Arch before - in fact just a year ago. It's 3 miles round trip, but VERY steep. So this time I brought my hiking sticks. We packed water, had good hiking shoes, and were ready to go! Enter asthma.  Yep. Sometimes it can be just one trigger that causes an asthma attack, other times it can be a lot of triggers piling up until your lungs can't take it anymore. For me, it was a few triggers piling up.  It started in the hotel room - which must have been dusty, because I woke up in the middle of the night sneezing and coughing. Dust is one of my worst triggers. So I started out the day with 2 puffs of my albuterol inhaler.    Strike 1. Then we followe...

You know, it would be REALLY nice if Mother Nature could even things out a little bit. Mothers aren't supposed to have favorites, right?! Yet The West is experiencing abnormally high temperatures for this time of year, and very little to no rain - following years of drought. The South is getting dumped on with crazy amounts of rain.  I would gladly take some of their rain! (Just not all of it....) The national news had a story about the weird weather. They showed Houston and surrounding areas covered in water and then a map of The West with  27 forest fires burning.  I talked to a family member and friend that live on the West Coast, and they both have asthma and are struggling to breathe. Ash is falling around them, and the air is thick with smoke. They have had a horrible heat wave and are not used to high temperatures. So, they don't have swap coolers or central air to cool down, and can't open their windows at night to get fresh air - because...