How Asthma Healed My Heart
By Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway
For my 50th birthday, I got asthma.
I had no idea you could just “get” this at my age. Ultimately, adult onset asthma would lead me to take better care of myself. But it would also force me to deal with a dysfunctional relationship in my life that was very painful to own up.
I’m in the love and blessings business, and breathing, well, is a pretty important feature of my job. As a wedding officiant, I have to be able to deliver a wedding ceremony without starting to choke and cough as I pronounce a couple “husband and wife.”
My asthma diagnosis came in the month of May, the start of wedding season. That summer, I had 40 weddings scheduled! This meant I would be around flowers constantly and in nature doing weddings regularly. While this would seem like a dream job to many – and normally is to me – many potentially devastating occupational hazards seemed to loom before me.
As it turned out, while flowers and trees were not causing asthma, nature could and did exacerbate it. I always had allergies to certain flower pollen but I was able to control it with homeopathic medicines. But with asthma, I feared that any wedding floral arrangement might do me in.
So I had to find out, fast, exactly what caused my asthma and how to manage it.
First stop was my primary health care practitioner. He referred me to numerous specialists -- cardiologist, gastroenterologist, and allergy doc, etc.
One of the most important parts of the journey was seeing an allergist for a full work up. My allergist said something wise: “You are not going to die from this. You may feel you are, but you will not. Take good care of yourself and this will be very manageable.”
The Dog Did It
It turned out I was/am allergic to my son’s beloved dog. The allergist surmised that the dog was causing my asthma and my chronic irritation from the dog was making me sensitive to everything else.
“You’ll have to get rid of her,” the allergist said. “Or have allergy shots.”
She explained that I would have to come every week for six months for a shot of a specially concocted vaccine. Then every month for four and a half years. She and every other doctor in my posse concurred that if I was to keep the dog I had to have the shots. Under duress, I let them mix my special serum and began the shots. I took the multiple medicines prescribed. My asthma felt like it was under control. But I was unhappy with so much medicine in my body.
Getting to the heart of the matter
We rescued Kismet from Katrina in late 2005. She is a beautiful dog of some mysterious breed that my child fell in love with. With her one brown eye and one blue, and she is very sweet and loving. But she grew to 85 pounds and, yet, thought she was a lap dog. I could not sit in chair without her trying to climb on my lap as if she were a 14 pound pup, licking me and getting dog hair and more all over me. She jumped on all of us, and anyone who visited, and was in a relentless pursuit of affection and attention.
When I was honest with myself I realized I resented our dog. I loved her, but she was a too big, too expensive, too tough to train, and essentially an out of control puppy who was messing with my life. When we adopted her it changed everything. I could no longer travel, leave the house for long periods of time or have meetings at my home. She was so disruptive and needy when she was younger. When I kissed my husband, she would jump up between us and simply would not allow us to embrace without her, too. She was bigger than my son and weighed more, and I was afraid she would knock him over. She pooped up our back yard. She barked like crazy. She disturbed my peace.
But she made my son so happy and she was his very special companion. How could I ever take that away from him? I couldn’t.
So in addition to medications I made the decision to follow the protocol for removing irritants. I got rid of rugs and fabric furniture she frequented. I stopped allowing her in our bedroom. I started cleaning like crazy and reduced the dog dander. I had her washed with non-shed shampoo. I began to change the environment.
I also stopped petting her. I realized when she touched me with her paw my skin would blotch and itch. When she was close I felt congested and breathing was not as easy. I was fanatic about tying not to expose myself to whatever it was in her that I was allergic too. I disconnected from her and yelled at her a lot. As the summer progressed I felt worse and worse, and I was besides myself that she could be making me so sick. Everyone told me to let her go, “get rid of her.” I felt so pressured. But I absolutely could not. We always believed Kismet came to use for a reason. I had to be able to work this out between Kismet and me.
My rejection was hurting her. And my behavior was creating family friction. On top of everything else, my husband and I had written a book a book called Pet Prayers and Blessings just months before. It came back for a final edit that summer and when I began to re-read it, it was devastating. I felt like a complete hypocrite. Kismet had inspired so many of the blessings in the book and now, I was afraid to touch my dog.
I began to awaken to the notion that, perhaps, my rejection of the dog in the first place was creating illness in me. I owned up to the part of me that really didn’t want her there. Asthma was a way to have an excuse to push her away, and not be too attached. I had dogs growing up and was never allergic. But I was always allergic to cats. I harkened back to my first pet adult pet, Jezzabelle, a cat I adored and lost in a terrible way. I was completely devastated by her loss and I think a part of me was afraid to get attached again to an animal.
I decided that even if I was allergic to Kismet she was not solely responsible for my asthma. I had to really, really own up to what many of my doctors had tried to tell me but what I could not hear at the time. Menopause was a bitch, but I had to lose weight and take better care of myself; I had to eat only food that nourished me and reduce my stress. I had to stop taking care of the world and not taking care of myself.
Letting nature take its course
After spending the summer in a much needed, self-centered healing crisis, one day I was ready to take control of my life again. I recommitted myself to my relationship with Kismet and to family harmony, and I decided to stop allergy shots and reduce the amount of medications I was on. The pressure of having to go for a weekly allergy shot was adding to my list of stresses.
I felt I had learned how to manage my asthma and how to dispel my fear of it.
I re-bonded again with our dog. She would come right up to me and try to lay her body on mine, putting her head right on my chest. For months I had pushed her away. But I realized she was trying to comfort me. When my heart opened to her again, I stopped feeling that asthma was “an issue.”
It’s been a few years now and I am blessed in that I have a condition that is highly treatable and manageable. And blessed also that Kismet and I have made our peace and have become better and filling each others needs. She’s jumping on me less for affection and I am loving her more.
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More Inspiration for Healing Asthma and Allergies
Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway offers her insights on love, relationship and how to feel like a hot tomato with wisdom and humor. As our Love and Relationships columnist, this author, interfaith minister, wedding officiant and love coach covers the gamut between marriage and menopause, romance and dating, and sex and spirituality.
She is author of 12 books, including: The Goddess Pages: A Divine Guide to Finding Love and Happiness (Llewellyn, November 2008); Pet Prayers and Blessings: Ceremonies and Celebrations to Share with the Animals You Love (Sterling Books, September 2008); Wedding Goddess: A Guide to Turning Wedding Stress Into Wedding Bliss (Penguin, 2005); and Release the Seductress Within: How to Seduce A Man and Thrill You Both (Random House, 2004). She is also author of the e-course Find Your Spiritual Soulmate.
Laurie Sue has a very active wedding ministry in New York, marrying couples of all faiths and backgrounds. And she is coach and creator of The Soulmate Project on Beliefnet.com. She is editor of Wedlok.com.
Prior to being ordained, she enjoyed a colorful career as a journalist writing for women. She was editor-in-chief of Playgirl and Single Living, and managing editor of Women’s News. She's written for NY Daily News, Denver Post, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Ladies' Homes Journal and Woman's World.
She returned to school - seminary school - at 40 to become an interfaith minister. It was there that she met her husband, Rev. Victor Fuhrman. She married her true love at 48.
Wisdom and Humorous Insights on
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Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway
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