Thank you for visiting my fundraising page. May is National Asthma and Allergy Awareness month, so I decided to join the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) in spreading awareness of this serious, life-altering disease.

I am normally not one to draw attention to myself, especially in regard to the one thing that I have tried to escape and suppress for years. But it wasn’t until recently that a close friend of mine shed some light on an outsider’s view of asthma. As we were talking one day, she said that it took her an extremely long time to realize just how bad it can be for me. Her statement made me realize that most people don’t fully understand asthma, and therefore tend to stereotype you, underestimating the severity of the disease.  The general understanding is that you have to take an inhaler occasionally; but most people think that’s it - you're fine, like taking Tylenol for a headache. For mild asthmatics, (which is what I was at age 12 through my late teens), this view is fairly accurate.  But for those who suffer from persistent or severe asthma (what I have now), it becomes much more complicated than that.  What people occasionally “see” is only the tip of the iceberg; hidden beneath that iceberg is a day-to-day struggle where you are trying to control the disease that, at any moment, can take control over you. Sometimes, the medicine just isn’t enough. And, currently, there is no cure.

When I experienced my first full-blown attack, I was a college student and had no idea what was happening.  I had mild asthma through my teens, and it only manifested in an annoying cough.  I rarely needed my inhaler and never fully understood the disease; it wasn't much of a threat to me.  But in college, I experienced what it was like lose my breath.  Why things took a turn for the worse once I hit my 20's, I will never know.  Some say our bodies change every seven years.  Sometimes asthma becomes dormant after a while; sometimes it just gets worse.  In hindsight, the attacks I had in college weren't nearly as bad as what I’m used to now, because it has gotten worse since then.  But fear of the unknown made it even more frightening, and threw me into a very dark place as a 20 year old, which is why I made every attempt to understand what was going on inside my body. Knowledge is power in this sense. 

Medically speaking, when exposed to a “trigger”, the muscles around your airways tighten, and the inside of your airways become swollen and fill up with mucus, limiting your ability to breathe. The “triggers” that set this off can include allergens, smoke, the weather, and infections, among many other things.  The more triggers you're exposed to, the worse off you are.  Learning to be conscious of your surroundings and your triggers can be helpful, but also mentally draining when trying to backtrack your day-to-day encounters, looking for patterns and trying to figure out what set it off “this time”. However, even when you identify the trigger, sometimes that isn’t enough to save you because it is beyond your control and just too powerful to overcome, thus leading to an “attack”.

Struggling to breathe during an attack can be a prolonged, physically painful, and draining experience, not to mention frightening and emotionally frustrating, and it can become a serious, life-threatening issue (one I haven’t been able to successfully protect others from witnessing). During a severe attack, your mind goes numb and your body goes on autopilot, desperately striving to breathe, fighting the feeling that something is crushing your chest while you are suffocating.  You're literally fighting for your life.  And you can guarantee that your body will find the energy to fight. It will fight with everything it has while you wait for the medicine to start working. This is why after the attack subsides, it takes an extremely long time to recover. As your body tries to get back to normal, your depleted energy quickly becomes obvious.  Actions such as sitting up require more energy than your body can give because everything was, and is, devoted to reviving your lungs and your airways. Most of the time, though, the attacks are not a huge spectacle, and it simply becomes a silent battle between you and your medicine, hoping it’s enough to protect you from the “point of no return” – hospitalization, the “Devil’s Drug” (oral steroids), or your very last breath.

Generally, my asthma is controlled - not cured, not better, but controlled - with medicine and heightened foresight.  However, it has gotten progressively worse each year, landing me in the hospital with oral and intravenous steroids on numerous occasions. It has been a long journey trying to isolate my triggers, find the right doctors and medicine. Along with weekly allergy injections and numerous vitamin supplements to build up my immune system, I currently take at least five daily prescriptions to help control my asthma, including daily nebulizer treatments and inhaled corticosteroids to keep my airways open and the inflammation at a minimum. The inflammation is actually the hardest thing to counteract because the swelling can build over time, even when you aren't "feeling" any of the symptoms.  And there are times when my daily medicine is not enough to protect me, so my asthma gets "out of control".  This means I will either have repeated, non-stop attacks, no matter what I take to stop it, or I'll be wheezing so much that it will feel as if an elephant is sitting on my chest as I try to breathe.  When any of these things happen, and my medicine isn't stopping it, the next step is a trip to the doctors (or hospital), where I am given a course of the "Devil's Drug" (Prednisone or Medrol), oral steroids with horrendous side effects including weight gain, depression, and the feeling that you were beaten up with a metal club, expecting to see black and blue marks all over your body, only to find the bruises invisible.  Despite the dreaded side effects, heavy duty steroids are honestly your only hope of stopping the attacks, the wheezing and the chest pain. Unfortunately, there is no other option.  In addition to the side effects, there are other risks; taking any type of steroid (inhaled or pill form) actually decreases your immune system, so your body does not have the ability to successfully fight off infections. Essentially, you are completely vulnerable to every germ that is out there, and if you catch a cold, or any other illness, you are left with not only the infection itself, but additional asthma flair-ups as well, and that can last for weeks, sometimes months. It’s a costly disease, on many levels, but when I can control my surroundings and when my medicine is enough of a protection, I have my asthma in check. But the battle is never over.

Nothing prepares you for the struggle to simply breathe or the sacrifices you have to make to get yourself back to “normal”. It will always be scary and frustrating, but understanding everything about this disease is truly half the battle.  So I’m hoping this page will help raise awareness for what so many people do not understand and / or suffer from.  I’m also trying to raise at least $100, “one teeny breath at a time”, for the AAFA to find better treatments and, ultimately, a cure.  Approximately 20 million Americans suffer from this disease, and 11 people die from asthma each day.  If you would like to help, you can donate through this site.  It is simple, fast, and totally secure.  Donating through this site is also the most efficient way to support my fundraising efforts.  All donations go directly to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.   Every little bit helps and a "teeny" amount can make a huge difference.  For instance:

• $10 will pay for one packet of 50 brochures, "Teens Talk to Teens About Asthma," to help newly-diagnosed teens cope with their symptoms and educate their friends and family members about asthma.

• $20 will pay for two "You Can Control Asthma" books for families with kids ages 6-12 to learn how to prevent asthma attacks.

• $50 will pay for one "Asthma Basics for Children (ABC)" education program, to help early childhood educators and parents with kids under age seven learn how to control asthma.

• $100 will pay for three months of AAFA's free "Ask the Allergist™" service, a Q&A Web page for people to get expert advice from one of AAFA's board certified doctors.

Thank you for your support and for reading!
Lots of love always,
- Christina (Teeny) Avila : )