How Vicks Vapor Rub Saved My Life

As Tuesday dawned I knew I wasn't going to work. The cold had moved in to my chest and it had packed a couple suitcases so I knew it was going to be here awhile. I moped around the house, bored, sick and listless. I could feel the passages in my lungs closing up and rued the coming night. The nights are always the hardest it seems. Around 9 o'clock I knew I was in trouble. I was having trouble breathing and went straight to the medicine chest for my inhaler. The first one I grabbed was expired in 2005, panic started to build. It's never good when you feel you cannot get a breath and start to panic as it only gets worse. I grabbed another newer inhaler and sucked in but no relief seemed to come.

Dena got me to lay down and pressed an acupressure point in the middle of my chest between my last 2 ribs. I couldn't find anything on the Internet to support that this is a real acupressure point for asthmatics but frankly, there is so much information out there regarding acupressure for breathing difficulties that it was overwhelming. It never occurred to me that this was an option and here I've relied on an inhaler all my adult life. Here are just a few.

After calming me down doing the acupressure she then applied Vicks Vapor Rub on my chest and under my nose. I remember back that my mom used to do this too, although she used to use safety pins to put a washcloth between my jammies and the Vicks. I now know why she did this as the Vicks discolors your clothes. But alas, a trip to the emergency room was averted once more. Dena often jokes to anyone who will listen that she'd never been to an emergency room until she met me and now she's been to them all throughout California. Stick with me baby and I'll take you places..... As she jokes, I worry, about my weak lungs and what will happen next time.