Hello, my name is Jennifer. I'm 39-years-old and I suffer from severe asthma and COPD.
When the air quality is poor, it makes me homebound and usually stuck in my bedroom, because that's the only room I have with air conditioning. I developed asthma when I was 12-years-old but didn't start having a real problem with it until about 4-5 years ago.
Before it became as severe as it is now, the air quality would barely affect me. I would notice it was a bit more difficult to keep up with my normal pace of life or with other people but other than that, it didn't really affect me much. Now that my breathing issues have become as severe as they are now, I feel like I walked into a huge oven and the air is being sucked out of me on poor air quality days. I'm unable to be outdoors on such days because I wouldn't last more than 30 minutes before having to be rushed to the hospital.
During summer months when we have a lot of poor air quality alerts, it can make my life pretty lonely. I sometimes feel like a child that's looking out the window wanting to be outside with everyone else. I wish there were ways to make it possible for me to be able to go about daily living during these types of days.
