Speaker: Emma
Tell us a little bit about yourself
Emma: Hi, my name is Emma. I'm 29 years old. I am a single person. I live alone. I do not have any kids. My occupation is an aesthetician so I primarily work with nails. Constantly working with people. I also do facials, spray tans. Some of my interests include dance. I really like Pilates. I like going outside taking walks, just being in nature. I enjoy, you know, being at home reading books.
Tell us about your diagnosis
Emma: So I was diagnosed when I was an infant around two years old. My parents obviously saw something that was wrong and I spent a lot of time in and out of the hospital. They quickly realized it wasn't kind of sports related or anything like active related. I even spent some time when I was younger in the pediatric care unit, in London.
Emma: I've had issues kind of getting control over it and as I've gotten older and it's become more an adult issue, I've had less of a grasp on how to deal with it. And, you know, coming into this, obviously, it's changed that a lot. I was just worried, you know, change in lifestyle, change in how I kind of perceive my diagnosis has definitely changed how I wanted to handle it. And there was just kind of a breaking point in adulthood when I realized I need to do something different. What I was doing before was not working and maybe my diagnosis was different and I needed to kind of figure out how to handle that.
How has your life changed since your diagnosis?
Emma: It's definitely been difficult to kind of grasp, being diagnosed with this and not knowing how to handle it appropriately. Definitely getting older, I found that I have a lot more triggers that I have to be aware of and kind of figuring out those problems was difficult and definitely a challenge because it could be where I'm living, what I'm doing, who I'm around and what's causing, you know, the issues to flare up and trigger more problems and, you know, it's, it's definitely been difficult because it's, it kind of stops you from doing certain things or being scared to do certain things because you think, well, I don't want to, you know, have my asthma start acting up. I don't want to have a flare up. How am I going to handle this if I'm in public, is anybody else gonna know how to handle this? It, it doesn't become easier. Sometimes it just becomes more, I guess, difficult with knowing what could be the cause and when and why.
How has Best Care impacted your life?
Emma: So, since being in Best Care and with my educator, Carly, I have found a lot of relief, dealing with day to day problems with my asthma. Coming into this, I was extremely apprehensive. I didn't think there was any solution that I was just going to live with the, the issues I was having. That my breathing was how it was and that, that was it. But coming in, she made me feel extremely comfortable. She's extremely educated about what she was teaching me and it was very easy for her to kind of help figure out what the problem was and then kind of help me with an action plan on getting better. And honestly, it's changed my life a lot. We whenever we meet kind of figure out why things are happening if there's changes and we tackle that immediately. And I've probably been the best I have been in my entire life with my breathing and I think that's directly because of Carly and how she's been handling, my education and my treatment plans. And I, you know, I think without her coming in that I would still be struggling and it's would still be impacting my life in such a negative way. And I'm completely thankful that she was able to, you know, help me with such ease. And it was, it's been great, like being able to have someone to trust that knows what they're doing, that understands my issues that can help me, you know, figure out problems is great and it's been a very good experience,. Even though I was apprehensive at first, I would recommend other people do this if they are having similar issues to me, especially at an adult age where they think, you know, this is how it is and there's no change. So I've been really happy that the outcome of this has been so positive and I think that it's only going to get better, the more we kind of work together and figure out more issues and how to fix them and, you know, going forward, tackling problems as they come.
Do you have a message for others about the Best Care program?
Emma: I think it's really important that Best Care is available to as many people as possible because there are so many people with respiratory problems that think that they have no way of fixing those problems or helping with those problems. And the way this has impacted me with my asthma and in my adult life, I really think the impact it would have on other people, younger, middle aged, older is so important and the fact that they have access to something as good as Best Care is, is really important because if I didn't have it, I would be struggling so much. And I think it's only appropriate that everyone has you know, the ability to have that as well. So I also think it's, it's very important to doctors, you know, be able to communicate with their patients that have these respiratory problems and are able to help them get access to Best Care because I wouldn't know about it without my doctor being involved with this. And it was great because he, you know, helped me get a better gain on my life because he's involved with Best Care. So I think it's, it's just important that everyone is able to have the chance to do that no matter where they are in Ontario.
