Thank you my dearest friend for calling me from the Roger Clyne concert! You know who you are! I am so sad I had to miss the show, but it was the sweetest thing you could have done while I was at home infusing my nightly IV dose! I love you!

I had to miss the concert because it was over an hour drive and I wasn’t quite sure how I would sneak my IVs into the venue without being hassled and made a spectacle of. Instead I met up with some coworkers at a little dive restaurant for dinner.

Although I live in a state where smoking cigarettes is not allowed IN public buildings, there is no real protection from people standing right outside the door while the smoke of their cigarettes wafts directly into the establishment. I’m not hear to rant about smoker’s rights, I believe they do have the right to smoke (no doubt they are making an educated decision), but I also believe I have a right, a MEDICAL right to breath clean air. But I stray from my point…

Today I sit here and take my morning dose of IVs while I am still suffering effects from breathing in smoke which came in the back door of the restaurant we ate at last night. Cigarette smoke REALLY affects my normal everyday, already having a hard enough time with it, ability to breathe. Even just a little sniff from someone sitting in a car next to me at a stop light is enough to send my body into a coughing fit convulsion. I try to avoid it at all costs, but sometimes I have no control.

Because of someone else’s choice, I sit here wheezing, feeling slightly suffocated, and having some pain from the asthma-like coughing fits that keep sneaking up on me. So, today I am glad it is Saturday and I do not have to go into work. Although, I could go in and make up some hours. But instead I will spend my day doing extra respiratory treatments, sucking on my nebulized medicines, having my therapy vest shake my lungs, and maybe see my dad for a few minutes if he can come over and literally beat on my chest to help me free the sticky mucus that is holding the smoke particles that are irritating my lungs.

I am not just someone who doesn’t like the smell. The smoke REALLY affects my breathing!

And this is what I have to deal with just to spend a few hours hanging out, eating some great grub, and trying to remember that I am still a part of society and not just a sicko just trying to survive.