The Inspector and The Wheezer: Annual Asthma Review of Doom and Failed Breathing Targets

NHS Asthma Inspector Person: “Hello, how are you, sit down”

Asthmatic: “Thank You (emits slight wheeze after walk to gp’s surgery, attempts to cover with cough)

NHS A.I.P: “So how have we been keeping?”

Asthmatic: “Fine thanks” (smiles nervously before the grilling)

NHS A.I.P.: “That’s good, so how long have you had asthma?”

Asthmatic: “Oh you know, since I could breathe…”

NHS A.I.P.: “I see here you are on the blah de blah short term and blah de blah long term inhalers, is that correct?”

Asthmatic: “Yes”

NHS A.I.P.: “And can you fill out this form indicating how often you use this medicine?”

Asthmatic: (eyes form of inevitable judgement and chastisement, sighs, circles some figures that are vaguely accurate but possibly fibbing on the side of less asthmatic than actually is)

NHS A.I.P.: (skims form)…”Hm…I see you use your inhalers every day, is that correct?”

Asthmatic: “Mm hm, some days are better than others.”

NHS A.I.P. : “I SEE. Do you have any particular triggers or allergies?”

Asthmatic: “Yes, I’m allergic to pollens and grasses and moulds and animal fur…basically all of the air. It’s all good, I’m used to it.”

NHS A.I.P.: “And are you using your long acting inhaler as often as you are SUPPOSED to?” (slight tone of foreboding)

Asthmatic: “Yes, of course.” (um mostly)

NHS A.I.P.: (silence….) "Ok well this isn’t really ideal, ideally you would not need your short term inhalers at ALL you know. We need to work on this. Can you blow into this weird looking doohickey and prove to me you have no puff in your lungs ? Now Inhale deeply and blow as FAST and as HARD as you can! 1-2-3 GO!!!"

Asthmatic: (emits weak puff of air, weird plastic air phallus measure is unimpressed)

NHS A.I.P.: (frowns) “That isn’t very good, I think we can do better! Now just wrap your lips around it tightly, inhale as if your life depended on it, and blow with all the force of a thousand winds, you sad sack of airless humanity” (grins manically, ever hopeful)

Asthmatic: (regards plastic phallus tube apologetically, inhales deeply, blows so hard she sees stars and feels dizzy, has flashback of grade school gym teacher shouting at her to run, asthma be damned: “What are you going to tell a dog if it chases you? Tell it I have asthma?!” The whistle blowing at her non-stop until she ends up in the nurse's office with an attack)

NHS A.I.P.: (frowns slightly less deeply) “Oh that’s a bit better. Still not where it should be on the cross margin of people who can blow into things who do not have a chronic lung disease, but we’ll let it slide for now...”

Asthmatic: (sighs, has small coughing fit, followed by a treacherous little wheeze.)

NHS A.I.P.: “I think we can try to improve this, none of this is acceptable, this Asthma malarkey is not an incurable chronic respiratory disease, you see, but rather a hassle on medical staff and a frankly a financial burden on the system. If you can’t figure out a way to breathe better things are only going to get worse for you. You feel me?"

Asthmatic: (stares at ground, guilty of being born a pasty weakling nogoodnik)

NHS A.I.P.: "...Now here’s a new inhaler – oh you’ve tried this one? Oh it made your asthma worse, you say? Oh, the big pharmaceuticals discontinued most of the asthma inhalers that were working just fine in favour of new ones that have thousands of complaints online that we will never acknowledge as not as good? Oh. Ok, my bad.”

Asthmatic: (awakens from reverie to see eyes of Asthma inspector boring into her)

NHS A.I.P.: “Ok so we’re going to find a way to improve this situation. I need you to take an extra dose of this one, ok, and ideally we’ll get you off of those pesky lifesaving breathing tools that you can’t quite kick, you little air junkie you.” (winks and takes a deep, clean, greedy gulp of air).

Asthmatic: (smiles benignly, not wanting to waste another breathe on 37 years of futility.)

The End, to infinity and beyond.

All opinions tongue in cheek or otherwise my own