Fife mum Gemma Banks had heard stories from her husband of how scary an asthma attack could be after he was diagnosed with the lung condition at the age of two.
But little did the 41-year-old know that she too would discover how frightening it is – when she herself had an asthma attack in January this year.
“It never even crossed my mind that I could have asthma,” she says.
“I thought asthma was a lung condition that was diagnosed in childhood, I had no idea that you could develop it as an adult.
“My husband of 14 years, Steven, was diagnosed with asthma at the age of two.
“And I had heard the stories of how he had been rushed to hospital and how frightening it was.
“These days his asthma is under control and he knows how to deal with things if he gets ill.”
She adds: “But even though I had never witnessed an attack, I thought I knew what it was – until it happened to me.”
When did Gemma become unwell?
In November 2023 Gemma fell ill with a chest infection.
She was given antibiotics from her doctor and soon she started feeling better.
But her chesty cough and wheeze hung around.
“I really thought I would feel better by Christmas,” she explains.
“But by mid-December I was still coughing really badly and I ended up pulling a muscle in my back.
“The simplest tasks were challenging and I couldn’t sleep lying down. I had to sleep upright on the couch where I could prop myself up.
“I was taking my daughter to and from school at this time.
“But when I got back to the car, I would have to sit and recover for a good five minutes because I was so breathless.
“By Christmas I was still coughing and wheezing so I went back to my doctor and was given a course of steroids.”
Being referred for an x-ray
Going into the New Year, Gemma, who works as a revenue assistant at Fife Council, started feeling unwell again.
She went back to the doctor and was given a stronger course of steroids as well as an inhaler to help her breathe better.
It was at this point she was referred to Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy for an x-ray.
“However, the morning before the x-ray, on Sunday January 14, I started feeling really ill,” she says.
“And I was coughing and wheezing badly.
“I just couldn’t get a breath. Steven, 42, suggested I should call NHS 24 to see if I could get an appointment.
“But I thought I will just wait until tomorrow when the doctors’ is open again.”
She continues: “It was suggested to me that I might be having an asthma attack.
“But I just shrugged it off because I didn’t have asthma so I thought it couldn’t possibly be an asthma attack.
“Yet as the day went on, I started to feel a lot worse. So eventually I called NHS 24 and got an out of hours appointment.”
Gemma’s asthma attack
Gemma remembers walking from her car into the hospital building. The short walk left her completely exhausted.
“I was taken to the admissions unit where they tested my oxygen levels.
“They were really low so I was put on high flow oxygen.
“I had an x-ray at 1am and when I came back from that I told my husband, who came in with me, to just to go home.
“I thought I would just be kept in the admissions unit overnight.
“But at that point I had no idea that things would escalate as the night went on.”
Gemma’s oxygen levels continued to drop as she struggled for breath.
So medics made the decision to transfer her to the high dependency unit.
“A lot of it is a blur,” she recalls.
“I remember being in high dependency and trying to get up awkwardly.
“I had already pulled a muscle in my back so there was a weakness there.
“But when I tried to get up I twisted and felt something pop.
“Then I was in absolute agony. I was also continuing to cough and every time I did, I just wanted to cry.
“I have had a few injuries over the years and have given birth to a child naturally with no drugs.
“But this pain was 100 times worse than that, it was horrible.
“The next day the doctor told me I had fractured my rib.”
Gemma learned she had asthma
The next morning two nurses came to see Gemma while she was still in high dependency.
It was then she learned she had an asthma attack and had developed the lung condition.
“I was still kept on oxygen but ended up being moved to the respiratory ward where I spent two nights.
“When I spoke to the nurses and learned I had asthma, it made sense because of the symptoms I had.
“Your brain always goes to the worst case scenario so I was actually relieved it was something treatable,” she says.
“But at the same time I never thought it could be asthma because I didn’t think you could get it as an adult.”
After spending two nights in hospital, Gemma was discharged with antibiotics, steroids and two inhalers with instructions on how to use them.
A second asthma attack
After she went home she thought everything would now be fine as she now had the correct medication.
But two weeks later she had a second asthma attack.
Thankfully though this one was not as bad as the first one and she managed to get it under control with her inhalers.
“The next day I went to my GP and was put on a higher dose of my preventer inhaler for a few days.
“And this seemed to be the turning point. Since then, things have been better.
“The cough and wheeze went and I was finally able to sleep lying down.
“I remember going to the supermarket a couple of weeks after my hospital admission and hearing my daughter whisper to her dad ‘mum has walked around here without coughing!’
‘Feeling lucky’
Gemma says she feels lucky things weren’t worse and has praised her friends and family for their support.
But she also knows it was also a frightening experience for them: “My family has been hugely affected by this,” she explains.
“My daughter Georgia is 7 and it really upset her to see mummy so ill.
“And my poor husband was traumatised seeing me struggling to breathe, needing oxygen.”
Daughter diagnosed with asthma
Gemma revealed her daughter was diagnosed with asthma a couple of weeks after she was.
“To be honest I suspected it for years,” she says.
“Every winter since she was a baby she would be coughing in the morning, coughing before bed and during the night.
“But after I was diagnosed – and seeing how serious it can get – I said let’s get her to the doctors and that’s when she was diagnosed with asthma.
“She started on an inhaler for a few weeks after I did and she has been fine. She stopped coughing pretty much straight away.”
Gemma added: “I am not sure what to expect in the future.
“But at least I know what symptoms to look out for now, so I don’t get into the same situation needing to go into hospital again.”
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