simple blessings

There are those things in life that you can manage under normal circumstances in order to make your day-to-day living as comfortable as possible. After awhile of managing them, you forget what it's like to not have those things under control. This is where I find myself.
Being someone with allergies to cats and dogs, as well as someone with asthma, there are very simple things that I do to manage those conditions. We don't own those pets. Probably never will. That also means that trips to family and friends' houses with these animals are usually thought out and well planned for; I don't go without taking allergy pills and carrying my inhaler along with. Situations like that are very easily dealt with when planned for.
So here I sit in Danbury, CT, spending the week with my brother, his wife, and their 2 cats. I knew that they had cats, so of course, I pack the allergy meds and the inhaler. And yet, from the first night we spend here, the allergy pills don't work nearly as well as I hoped, and the inhaler has very limited usefulness. I had planned on keeping up on my running while here, but there's no way that I will be able to do that, even taking a walk outside with my husband drains me to near exhaustion. Only by spending a lot of time being still outside do I feel comfortable; like whoever is pressing on my chest finally lets up, allowing me to completely fill my lungs.
I've been thinking today of all the things I take for granted. That I can breathe fully, that the medication I have available to me allows me to live like I have no illness. That I have medication available to me at all. I had begun thinking lately that I am so much stronger than before. I can run 3 miles without a second thought, I can run 6 miles with the help of my friends, my endurance is much improved over any other time in my life. And yet if I tried running 3 blocks right now, even with taking my inhaler, I would be gasping for breath, begging my renegade body for mercy. One variable of change reduces me to utter weakness.
I read a story in high school spanish, called No One Writes to the Colonel. It's a very sad story about (obviously) an old army Colonel who waits and waits for a letter about his pension that he's been promised, but it never comes. The Colonel's wife is asthmatic, and throughout the whole story wheezes her way through her days, with apparently nothing to help and no money with which to purchase any relief. Each time I think about this poor woman, it hurts my lungs. Even if my inhaler doesn't completely relieve my symptoms, it's better than nothing, and even now, all I have to do is slip outside for awhile to let my lungs slowly relax. I have felt the sense of hopelessness after taking all the medication I dare and still not feeling comfort. I know "the point of no return" when I really need to go to the doctor or the emergency room. I can't imagine reaching that point, and not having the option. Even with how frustrating my current situation is, I still have the hope that it is manageable, and not permanent.
So this week's simple blessings include that I have medications that I can take. That the weather is beautiful outside and I can sit out there as long as I want or need. That my brother and his wife are doing all they can to help me feel better. That the plans we've made take me out of the house for long periods of time.
It's wierd to think that God's infinite wisdom allowed me to have these problems. It's hard to try and bend them into something that will glorify him. I don't really see how it all works out together, maybe one day...