People who have asthma live with it day by day. Usually they can get by with out it affecting them to much, if they take the proper medication. Now and then however it can attack them leaving the person breathless and scared.

My friend deals with asthma and this is no different for her. Normally when she becomes short of breath she calms down and takes the proper steps to being able to breathe again, but one time she was not able to. Her parents took her to the emergency hoping that they would be able to find out what was wrong.

At this point my friend was feeling rather frightened as air was not coming easily to her. Feeling panicked they were able to get the nurses attention. When the nurse came over see her, rather than the nurse finding a way to calm my friend, by saying, “Everything is going to be alright, calm down, just breathe slowly”, she snapped at her, “Calm down! You need to calm down!”.

There is no way that I would be able to calm my self down by someone trying to bite my head off. Maybe this lady was having a bad day, but does she not know that she is working with people who are fragile, physically and emotionally? There are ways of getting an important point across to someone without cramming it down their throat. Using a gentle tone when speaking is a much better option, even if you are having a bad day, a busy day, or a whatever day. Speaking kindly will portray compassion and aid in achieving your outcome goal with a person, where as a harsh tone will ignite a negative reaction, not only to the patient but to those who use it.