Jedi Bronchitis

Anakin Skywalker had it rough.  Poor kid had to leave his mother at a young age in hopes of becoming the greatest Jedi the universe had ever seen.  Many years later, he dukes it out with Kenobi, loses the battle, and gets thrown into a black suit and mask to survive.  Thus, transforming him into the seemingly evil, Darth Vader.  Without the mask and suit, Vader would die.  Having said that, everyone recognizes the raspy inhale and exhale heard through his mask in the films.  This is similar to how I've been breathing lately.  

Last week, I came down with bronchitis.  Or a mild form of it anyway.  Not good for someone who's already had pneumonia twice.  As a result, my doctors recommended that I use a nebulizer combined with albuterol.  The nebulizer, to me is a fancy word for 'tiny air compressor' with less syllables.  Albuterol is a drug that's used in rescue inhalers for people with asthma and things like that.  Once a day, I add the albuterol liquid to this mask adapter that's connected through the nebulizer, breathe normally, and BAM!  Insta-Vader.  Only without the kick-ass lightsaber.

The long short of it is basically that my lungs still have some scar tissue in or around my breathing vessels from my previous bouts with pneumonia.  When a person gets bronchitis, mucus starts to build up around those tubes and starts to limit the amount oxygen going through.  As a result, the oxygen levels in your bloodstream drop, you experience extreme shortness of breath, lots of nasty coughing and are really fatigued.  It actually feels a lot like pneumonia, without the fevers.  This is where the albuterol comes in.  Supposedly it'll assist in drying the mucus in my lungs.  I will most likely have to do this breathing treatment for a month or two, perhaps longer.  

In the meantime, while I find my lack of breath disturbing, I am still working.  But beneath the lightsaber hum and low force rumbles, television has become my new best friend...again.