Directly contrary to doctor's orders...

[ailbhe]

I have a lung infection. So today, instead of staying at home and resting, I walked to the library and did singing and actions for mother-and-baby nursery rhymes for half an hour, followed by walking home talking to someone who needed to borrow a book from me.

Is that what asthma is like? Breathing as hard as you can and not getting anywhere? Gasping and gasping and no air going in at all? Because I felt like I think asthma sufferers look when they're mid-attack, if you can follow that.

The singing gorup was lovely though. The librarian has a real thing about kiddiwinks and throws herself into the event with great gusto - she always wears a neat little suit, has very neat curls like all old ladies used to only hers are black, has little gold earrings and a matching chain, not-quite-flat court shoes - she's a very respectable middle-aged lady of my mother's day, only it's easily 10 years since my mother was really middle-aged.

Watching the librarian being a Dingle-Dangle Scarecrow was highly amusing.

Linnea was a bit intimidated at first - there were about 15 or 20 mothers there, most with one child each, all singing and clapping, so it was a pretty big, loud group, and she's a [_] sheltered [_] deprived child [tick one] who does't go to nursery so it took a little while to acclimatise herself. She was fine by the end of it though. We're hoping to go again next week, if I've stopped wheezing by then.

Oh - and the antibiotics? They're having an... effect. I'll be trying a pot of live yoghurt tomorrow morning, I think.

Comments

[lnr]

"Is that what asthma is like? Breathing as hard as you can and not getting anywhere? Gasping and gasping and no air going in at all? Because I felt like I think asthma sufferers look when they're mid-attack, if you can follow that."

I had a serious chest infection as an undergrad (as well as some less bad ones) and while I was recovering I decided I was well enough to go out clubbing so long as I took it easy: soon as I tried jumping up and down to a track I ended up doubled over completely unable to get breath in properly, and "is that what it feels like to be asthmatic" is what occurred to me at the time too.

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

Is that what asthma is like?

Yes.

Hon, please do what your doctor is recommending. I know it's boring as hell, but it will help you recover faster. Lung troubles are a bitch to recover from, and the more rest you give them the faster you'll recover.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Our library reading session is fun too :) Bev, the librarian, reads 4 books & they do nursery rhymes too.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

i know your bored, but PLEASE be careful.

i want you well. :/

BTW - OT but funny:
so, sometimes my phone has this weird glitch. my BF will call me, but instead of his name popping up on the screen, it says "AILBHE" because i happen ot have your phone number in there despite the fact that i'm in the USA and have never ever called you.

every time it happens i go, "what?! why's ailbhe calling me?! is she in the 'states?!"

then i pick it up and it's midnightstation instead and i laugh.

n.

[artela.livejournal.com]

Yes. That's what asthma feels like. If doing things makes you like that then please don't do them! It *is* possible to actually damage yourself to an extent whereby you end up asthmatic for a while (happened to me following bronchitis on top of hayfever as a kid... ended up on ventolin for two years while everything got better).

[perdita-x.livejournal.com]

I second this. I'm asthmatic for life because of a chest infection and I stook to my doctor's orders...

[sshi.livejournal.com]

oh, the ventolin, I remember you well, and have completely no desire to go there again (chronic bronchitis as a kid, no fun whatsoever)

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

she's a very respectable middle-aged lady of my mother's day...

Heh. On the course I do, two people that I can think of offhand intend to try and go into specifically childrens library work. One is, like your librarian, a Respectable Middle-Aged Lady, capitals intentional. The other is a tattooed four-foot-something Filipino (filipina?) girl from Seattle.

Conversely, among the staff, the one who will at all opportunities rhapsodise about his time working in a children's library is this gaunt acerbic fiftysomething member of the Board of Governors with four degrees who writes short stories for the BBC and lectures in virtually every course the faculty offers.

It's a weird group you get doing that job. But an interesting one...

[barakta]

Real Children's librarians are getting rarer and rarer. In the past they were specifically trained for the job and spent all their time doing children's library work and resources. A lot of them were paid extra to do children's work, but it was also a post which required an AWFUL lot of energy a lot of the time to be perky.

Now they don't pay them extra (or at least in Sheffield) and they don't really train them like they used to. My colleagues in Sheffield who did the children's stuff said they didn't get the proper time to prepare anymore, that time had to be taken out of other work.

There's a very good library comic strip and this is the introduction to the children's librarian. A lot of the stereotypes in it were actually realistic - both patrons and librarians.

I'm just glad I didn't have to do much specific children's work, because I know nothing about kids. The noise just turns into mush in my hearing aid. That and I find most children under the age of 10 or so impossible to hear, and unless they know me well they don't know I need to see their faces and stuff... Although once they know I'm partially deaf they are fascinated.

Natalya

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Asthma is like that but worse. Have an asthma attack is the feeling of not only not getting enough air, but feeling the amount of air you're getting rapidly dwindle. The real panic behind it isn't so much, "OMG, I'm really short of breath," but, "If this doesn't stop REAL SOON NOW, I'll cease brething and die."

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

Yes.

And it can be, like, fighting for every measly molecule of oxygen with every erg of diminishing strength and focus, becuase you're Suffocating, dying, no doubt about it.


Not worth risking. Definitely not.

[firecat]

Thirding or fourthing the recommendation to follow doctor's orders lest you damage your lungs permanently.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

Fourthing or fifthing.