Elle100's post about cough variant asthma got me thinking about my own asthma and i just thought i'd share a story about one of my own unpleasant experiences.
One of the the worst times i've ever had was in 1997 - pre-smoking ban. I went away on pilgrimage with a coachful of people from my church. The smokers were put at the back of the coach, non-smokers towards the front ( i was 4 seats back). They lit up straight away and we ended up travelling for 12 hours. Then when we got to the hotel i ended up having to share a room with a smoker - on the 2nd floor, no lift and our room didn't have a window just a skylight.
You can probably guess what's coming. I had to spend time with smokers wherever i went, they were even smoking during mealtimes!!!! Allan, the man who sort of took me under his wing was a smoker too (i was 18 and the only person on the trip under about 45) and of course i intially didn't mention i'm asthmatic! Over the course of the week i got worse and worse (and to complicate matters i'd been SO well just before that i'd been taken off my preventer so i only had a reliever inhaler - of which i'd luckily taken 2 with me).
I coughed and coughed and coughed, at one point in the dinner room one lady turned round to me and said quite nastily ""will you stop coughing!"" AS if i was doing it by choice!!!! Anyway by the 3rd or 4th day (of 7) i'd got so bad i could hardly breathe - was so bad i couldn't even eat properly, probably should've been in the hospital but didn't want to make a fuss. But, during one meal i just had to leave the room and Allan came with me, when i got outside i really wanted to cry but didn't seem to have the breath even for that! After that my asthma became common knowledge 
Had i not been so ill i probably would've been highly embarrassed. I was sitting at the same table as the priest for meals and he then declared there'd be no smoking at our table, not that it helped much as they were smoking in the rest of the room. When we went on days out i also got moved to the front of the coach where there was a sliding window in the door and that was kept wide open for me most of the time.
Well i survived the week but didn't enjoy it. I think partly what made it worse was the attitude of the so-called christians who were actually making me more ill. Most of them just seemed to be annoyed at my coughing. Not long after that i was put back on a preventer inhaler and there i've stayed ever since.
Sorry this ended up so long - if you've got to the end of the tale well done LOL
Consultant doesn't believe my diagnosis 
New adult onset asthma
Snap, crackle and pop
Asthma and throat clearing 
Anybody complained about GP?
