Where's YOUR Lifeline?

I hate my inhaler. Not only is it ugly, it is a reminder of an internal flaw, an inherent (and inherited) weakness in my body. The albuterol burns my tongue and leaves a foul taste in my mouth for twelve hours afterwards. The chemical makes my heart race, my temples throb, and my hands shake. I use it only when I feel that I am at death's door.

Or- as often as not- I leave it at home, and foolishly go out visiting people that I have never met, only to find out they have a dog- an old, arthritic, dander-producing dog. Dogs are anathema to me. Cats are worse.

That's what happened tonight. We were invited to the home of friends-of-friends, you know how that is. We arrived to find a group of incredibly kind people, many with children in the same age range as ours. Although I noticed the dog, heck, I even pet him, it just didn't click in my brain that he was going to make me suffer.

We grilled and feasted on steak (an asthma trigger), cheesy potatoes (dairy also worsens asthma), and finished off with cream pies (dairy again!). The only thing that I could have done more stupid this evening would have been to top it all off with some corn product.

Oh wait, those tortilla chips...

So, to make a short story long, I ate naughty food and hung out in a house with dander freshly flying around. The house was scrupulously clean, and I am just going to assume that it had just been vacuumed, which would account for the high circulation of dander in the air.

It started with itchy hands, then a tickly nose. Hoping to circumvent it all, I simply ignored the symptoms. I have always heard that most allergies are psychosomatic anyhow, so why not overcome my own brain?

Turns out my brain still answers to my lungs.

By the end of two hours, my lungs were screaming for air, my hands were twitching, my eyes watering... the whole shebang. Our host kindly dug out a Claritin, but nothing touches the asthma. And there was no inhaler to be found in my usual stash- nothing in the glove compartment, or my purse, or with my gum, or even near the pen/chapstick/kleenex stash in my car console. I have makeup- useful for being pretty. I have random hair clips- useful for being, uh- pretty. I have my wallet, complete with all proper ID, a checkbook that wouldn't get me very far, various reciepts and medical brochures, a iPod Shuffle that has had 'The Phantom of the Opera' on it since last summer, a roll of Lions mints, a pen that doesn't work, and a green bracelet.
All things that are useful, in their own right. All things that belong in purses and car consoles and glove compartments. But no lifeline. None of that stuff will be any good to me if my bronchial tubes close up and I can no longer get oxygen to my heart.

Where is your lifeline? Whether its a job that you are passionate about, a person in your life that has made it all worth living for, or just a simple piece of plastic that can spray a fine steriodal mist- all of us have a lifeline. And many of us go through our daily lives without having it near us.

I'm throwing you a lifeline today- grab it! Catch hold, remember to take it with you always, and save some coconut cream pie for me.