It's the Most Horrible Time...

At least for my asthmatic arse. Sneezin' and Wheezin' Season has commenced. I can tell by the way my throat feels closed up and I suddenly have a need for my preventers, puffers, and occasional nebuliser doses of my meds.

I have my faithful Max within arm's reach. And I always have a modicum of medication squirrelled away within the cargo space. I've had the better part of my entire life coping with not being able to breathe so this is more or less background noise.

Annoying as fuck background noise, mind. Super-irritating background noise. The kind of background noise that makes one wish to kill the source.

Just because it's background doesn't mean it's at all soothing or relaxing. Just because it's 'normal' doesn't mean it's 'good'.

People need to remember that, sometimes. It might be 'normal' to lose your life savings on life-saving surgery, but it isn't good. It might be 'normal' to have to jump through a billion hoops a month just to get a prescription for medication that prevents a painful and debilitating condition from hurting you, but it isn't good.

It may be 'normal' to go through your life in the certainty that, if you set a foot wrong, someone is going to hurt you. That is not good at all.

It may be 'normal' to hate a group of people based on attributes different to your 'normal'... but it sure as fuck isn't good.

It's normal for me to spend every Spring and Autumn fighting to breathe at some point. It's not good. I wish we could cure Asthma, but... that sort of thing is not happening any time soon.

And that's what it's like to have a chronic illness, peeps. The suffering is normal. It is in no way good.