Days of My Life

Talk about daily life of a teenage girl in Iraq, and days of suffering and success. My nick name will be Sunshine..

Friday, August 19, 2005

My Asthma & the pollution...

I have asthma since I was four, as you now the weather in Iraq is very hot & the humidity is very high , & there is another reason that makes it difficult to breath ,it's the pollution.
The causes behind that are so many like the old cars , & the large no of cars that entered the country after the collapse of the X- regime, & that is because of the absence of authority on the ambit , & there is no excises nor customhouses , you can see the fume & smell it.
We shouldn't forget about the harm of explosion's & incinerating the garbage. In addition to the garbage spread in the streets. Burning the garbage, is very common here , because of the lack of the municipality services.
So many times I had to call my mom from my school to bring me the respiratory machine(Nebulizer Compressor Unit) ! The inhaler, now is no more of benefit. once my teacher saw my condition, she brought me a new type of bronchodilator drug , from England . Since I had started to take these new inhalers , I became much better .I could run & walk, even ascending the stairs easily .
But since last month my breathing started to get worse again , because the Inhalers were Emptied .we tried to find that kind of inhaler in Mosul , Baghdad , Dubai, & Jordan but unfortunately we couldn’t find them.
In the hospital there is a lot of announcements admonishing from smoking, but no one observes even the doctors. I had to go to the hospital for several times. I was so amazed from the doctor attitude he was smoking in the emergency room!
The hospital is very dirty &the medical care is so bad .
I went to the north of Iraq 3 times & I found a huge difference between here & there. There you can feel the pure cold air .
Oh, how can I forget the generator's fume, the generators in Iraq are very old & it expels a lot of dark fume . That is a very important & one of the basic reasons of pollution..
One of the bad days I had was when the factory of brimstone was burned in Mosul in 2003 , it's name is ( Al-Meshraque factory ) , that was a disaster , I was in the sixth class primary school , & I was in my way to the final exam on that day , my family worried about me, from another attack of asthma. it was a tough day , but the attack wasn't so bad & I didn't need hospitalization. Even the plants were badly affected by that fire. ,even in our garden many fruitful trees died.
These are additional things that make the life in Iraq very hard, spatially if you were asthmatic......
stay safe & enjoy your healthy environment ....
Sunshine....





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25 Comments:

At 3:43 PM, Blogger olivebranch said...

Sunshine, what kind of respiratory drug do you take??? Here in Western Australia we are the leading world researcher for Asthma cure/treatment..

Also, I suffer from bad asthma aswell, and can get perscription drugs for it if I am in need (or if you are in need).....

Is the postal service likely to deliver a package from Australia to you in Mosul???

If you tell me what you need I will buy it for you and send it over, I can 100% guarantee that any asthma treatment drug you need I can get.... and, the postal service willing, I can mail over to you aswell!

Call it my way of helping the future of Iraq, keeping its intellectuals alive!

Love + Peace to you!

Luke(y) Skinner

 
At 3:50 PM, Blogger olivebranch said...

Oh I just had a brilliant IDEA!

I can get you treatments for your asthma, and send them to Rose in Dubai, then we can gaurantee safe transfer through to you!

Please let me help.... It won't cost me anything (well, AU$4.50, and I can earn that in less than 20minutes..)

 
At 6:18 PM, Blogger Um Haleema said...

I hope that Olivebranch is able to help you. How wonderful and caring!

I can understand the extra smoke from generators and that is a shame. Is it a new thing that people in your area have no regard at all for the law or have they always been this way? I am shocked to hear that even the doctors will smoke in a HOSPITAL! Doctors should not be seen smoking anywhere. Don't they feel an obligation to be a good model for people? So they have no smoking signs all over the hospital but no one pays any attention? Does anyone ever tell anyone to put it out or to go outside? Do people not care or are they afraid to speak up? It is very dangerous to smoke in a hospital. People are using Oxygen and it can explode! I get a sense that there are a lot of very selfish people in Iraq. Do you think that this is a new thing or just due to the fact that people's lives are upside down right now? In a good society the people are more concerned about others than themselves.
I cannot understand the garbage on the streets. Do people have no pride at all? Are they throwing their household garbage out on the street or are they just littering as they walk by? There is no excuse for this. People need to speak up and shame people that do this. Can't the community get together and decide on a place to make a grabage dump and just burn in one place if they must burn the garbage? Is there is a lot of unemployment in your area? These people could volunteer to clean things up and help keep things clean.
Oh I am just so disgusted right now Sunshine. I'm so sorry that you have to live this way. You and your mom seem like such sweet people you do not deserve this! I hope that you are able to get the medication that you need.

Stay sweet and stay safe!

 
At 6:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

how wonderful that olivebranch can help. a real demonstration of blogpower and international friendship. stay safe.
starliz

 
At 9:41 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, if Olivebranch is able to help you, you should definitly accept it.

I too have asthma and remember spending many nights in the hospital as a child. Back then I just had the fast acting medication, but there really was nothing for prevention. Today there are things like Advair and Singular that can and do SIGNIFICANTLY help prevent athsma attacks.

Some people have told me that I'm being selfish when I don't want people to smoke around me, but I know better! A friend of mine lost one of his high school friends at the age of 39 due to an asthma attack just this past year. Please try to take care of yourself and don't let those smokers make you feel guilty for your condition. YOU can't help having asthma but smoking is a choice that THEY don't HAVE to make.

Hang in there, hopefully the meds will start coming in and you'll be able to live a mostly healthy life :)

 
At 3:33 AM, Blogger Mad Canuck said...

Here in the US, some states have banned smoking in most indoor places, including not just hospitals, but also offices, bars, restaurants, hotel lobbies, shopping malls, and pretty much any indoor public place. Here in New York, it's like that. I like the fact that I can go visit the pool hall or go out for dinner and not come home with my clothes smelling like the bottom of a dirty ashtray. It's actually so uncommon to see smoking indoors here, you really do notice it.

 
At 5:34 AM, Blogger In His Steps said...

That would be awesome Olive Branch if you can send Sunshine her inhalers!! There are so many drug companies that give samples to the doctors here in Canada (and I'm sure the US) that it would be used better to send to your country. I wonder if any of the medical missions are involved in anything like that.
Smoking is like that in Canada too. You can hardly smoke even in your own home anymore!
My daughter had asthma as a young child and I remember the days of running her to the hospital and staying up many nights with her. Now she is 18 with no asthma but can you believe it, she smokes!!! I hope she quits but she can't be forced.

 
At 6:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hope olivebranch can help you get what you need for your ashtma. That would be GREAT.

I also do not understand the garbage on the street. I noticed in alot of the soldiers blogs that have pictures of the streets that there is a LOT of garbage. Why is that? I can understand some of it due to what is going on in Iraq. But a lot of it just looks like household trash. Are there not trash centers there? Do people just litter everywhere? And are there not public trash cans that are emptied? I don't understand this. Why don't people pick uo the trash and take pride in where they live?

Also do the sand storms bother your asthma? I hope Olivebranch can work it out and get you the medication you need.

 
At 10:19 AM, Blogger Um Haleema said...

From an arabic newspaper:
The Unified Crime of a Nation!
18/08/2005
Ahmed Al-Rabei

The more I visit the capitals of the Arab world, the more I believe that a conspiracy against mankind exists that is planned and carried out in that region. The goal is for man to kill himself! The conspiracy is against life and an eerie silence surrounds the plot. The conspiracy targets the environment, after the Arab cities have become refuge to clouds of pollution. Arabs now fear the water of their rivers as they have become haven for toxic substances and waste materials that eventually reach the seas and oceans.

Read the whole thing here.

http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=1293

 
At 9:01 PM, Blogger Jack B. said...

Sunshine, I too hope olivebranch can help. I had no idea how horrible it was for you. Here in New York we have 8 million people and millions of cars and pollution is bad. You have to leave the city if you want to see a clear sky at night. We have a great sanitation department but there's always garbage on the streets anyway (though thankfully not of it is burned). Yet as bad as it is it is far worse for you. The shortages of fuel, electricity and basic neccessities must be horrible especially in all the heat. I wish there was something I could do except pray that you stay healthy and safe.

 
At 10:06 PM, Blogger Dancewater said...

Sunshine,
I appreciate your writing and I hope your asthma gets better. I hope life in Iraq gets better soon too.

There's lots of trash and garbage on American streets too, but we have services to help clean it up. Sometimes prisoners go out on the the highway and clean it up. Since Iraq is in total turmoil, you don't have these services. And a lot of Americans are too dumb to understand that. Picking up trash is not a priority when water, security and electicity are in short supply.

I will "hold you in the Light" as they say at my church.

 
At 6:21 AM, Blogger Mad Canuck said...

Olivebranch: You may find the postal service rather unreliable to Mosul. I sent some CDs to Mosul a couple of months ago by mail, and to this date, the person I sent them do hasn't received them. There are a few courier (DHL, etc.) who deliver to Mosul, though. Waldschrat was able to get a donation of some Ostomy supplies through to Mosul a couple of weeks ago.

Jack Bennett: I don't think there's much comparison of the air pollution here in New York versus a lot of other places I've traveled to. If you spend a couple of weeks in Mexico City (a city 3 times the population of New York City and without the emission regulations we have here) you'll come back amazed at how fresh the air in New York smells. I've never been to Mosul, but from what I've heard, it's probably closer to Mexico City than to New York in terms of pollution.

One thing that helps here in New York is we have strict regulations around cars here - once a year, you have to take your car to be inspected and have an emission test done, and if it fails you have to get the car fixed. One of the biggest causes of asthma is th emissions from poorly tuned engines. An engine that is poorly tuned doesn't properly burn the gasoline, and this is a big cause of pollution.

Um Haleema: I agree with you. The best way to ensure smoke-free hospitals is for people not to smoke in them, and the best way to have clean streets is for people not to throw their trash there. In a well-ordered society, individuals need to realize that they each have responsibility to helping maintain a good quality of life for themselves and those around them by refraining from behaviors like this.

 
At 10:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sunshine,

Some people love smoke! Can you believe that?!

I used to be a fireman. And one day it was already real hot before we even got to the fire and when we arrived to put out the fire, the firemen didn't want to put on their air tanks because it was too hot so they went into the thick smoke and put out the fire without wearing their air tanks.

And guess what happened when they were finished and was resting beside the fire truck? They said they needed a cigarette!

Funny story about those silly firemen and I hope it made you laugh.

 
At 5:07 PM, Blogger Raghda said...

Hello Sunshine,
You are doing a great job n your blog, keep this up.

 
At 12:05 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.ivc.org/mosul

City of Philadelphia partners with the city of Mosul.

Part of the Sister City program.

 
At 12:24 AM, Blogger programmer craig said...

Oooh... ouch! I got deleted :\

 
At 7:07 AM, Blogger CharlesWT said...

Asthma affects an estimated 17 million people in the U.S. alone. Find in-depth information on asthma treatments, triggers, and prevention. Plus, find support for parents caring for children with asthma.
Asthma Health Center

 
At 7:33 AM, Blogger Mad Canuck said...

Hi Craig: If Sunshine deleted your comment, it would say "Comment deleted by a blog administrator" where your comment was. If your comment doesn't appear at all (like now), it usually means that blogger "ate" it.

Blogger is good, but not perfect. Sometimes blogger gets hungry and likes to munch on comments or even blog-posts. Your comment was probably its evening snack... :)

I've learned the hard way to copy and paste my comments (or posts on my own blog) into Notepad before I publish them, then double-check that they appear after I publish.

 
At 8:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What the name of the inhaler that you want?

 
At 10:57 PM, Blogger programmer craig said...

Ah, thanks for the info Mad Canuck :)

<--- newbie to blogs still!

 
At 9:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!

 
At 6:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

�Qu� tiene todos puesta de acuerdo con esto?Best Wishes, Mikki indoor air quality coolroom

 
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At 7:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are so many people whose friendship, kindness and humour have helped me through this period away from home. ur blog is also a great place to relax. thanxs. debt consolidation

 
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