Last night at work I got to experience the ER from a different perspective. I was sitting at the nurses station charting and I felt my lungs were a bit tight and I started to wheeze. Prior to this I had been coughing on and off for about 30 minutes. I thought I should go to my locker and get my bag where I kept my Ventolin just in case I would need it. I get back to the nurse’s station and I can’t find my Ventolin.

I start to panic because at this point I’m having an asthma attack and I have no Ventolin. For those who are not familiar with asthma, Ventolin is a puffer that is used when having an attack to open up the air way.

Now my chest is feeling tight and I’m wheezing pretty bad. Luckily, being on a nursing floor we keep stock of Ventolin so I went to find one. I took a couple puffs and my lungs started to feel slightly better.

After about 10 minutes I started to wheeze again and the lungs went tight. At this point the nurses are starting to become worried as this is not resolving, so they call the respiratory therapist to come and see me. I know that I just need a side-stream of Ventolin but of course we don’t keep that stock. The respiratory therapist keep this on themselves.

Now at this point I’ve taken my Ventolin again and of course it’s not working and I’m starting to have trouble breathing. I can barely talk and my chest is getting very tight. The nurses decide to take me to the ER, on the way down we run into the respiratory therapist who is coming up to see me. He rushes me down to the ER!

Once there I received a side-stream of Ventolin. Which is Ventolin in liquid form, and it is put into a small chamber that is hooked up to a mask. I breathed that in for a few minutes and my chest felt 100% better and I can breath again. The wheezing has stopped and the chest tightness is gone.

I really hate taking Ventolin and will only take it if I can’t get my breathing under control and it is absolutely necessary! After I take Ventolin I usually feel like crap, I start to shake and my heart races. These side effects usually go away with several minutes, but I still can’t stand how I feel for those few minutes.

We are not sure what triggered this attack as most of my asthma attacks are activity induced, or due to smoke. I also have excellent control of my asthma as I haven’t had a major attack like this for 5 years.

But what a great team of ER doctors and nurses. I was rushed in and they were all over me and I was in and out of there in 30 minutes.