Severe Asthma Video

Severe asthma is a life-threatening disease, as Jake Cohn and Kailia Hill know all too well. National Jewish Health is conducting research to save lives threatened by severe asthma.

Transcript

My name is Dominique Hill and asthma runs through my family - my sister has it, my mother has it, I lost a best friend to it, and now my daughter has it. I'm scared I might lose her one day.

I'm Jake Cohn and I've had severe asthma since birth. My lungs are extremely scarred from asthma and all the steroids. My whole childhood just severe coughing spasms and asthma attacks have damaged my lungs.

Jake's been a big challenge - for Jake, we've had to use everything that we've learned from clinical trials to bring innovative new treatments, medications, procedures, lifestyle changes. What is the next thing we're gonna offer him?

I am scared, you know, I've been scared since she was 3 months. I could tell she was having trouble breathing and she started turning pink and I got somebody to bring me to National Jewish and luckily we made it here just in time. It's just a really scary feeling with a 15-month-old. I'm scared to wake up to my child not waking up in the morning. She's only a baby.

Kailia's really young to have such a severe case of asthma; she's already been in and out of the hospital. She's had several life-threatening episodes. There could be speed bumps along the way and what I'm really concerned about is the next speed bump could cost her her life. When are we gonna get to a cure for asthma and people like Jake and Kailia have more options?

I'm hoping for Kailia that she's able to grow up and be able to play and run like the other kids.

It changed my life. It is physically demanding; I get out of breath every time I ski.

For somebody like Jake, it's just absolutely amazing to me what he's been able to accomplish. We need more research, we need more investigation, we need to study people like Kailia and Jake and National Jewish is the perfect place to do that.

Never say you can't do something because of your asthma and never let it get in the way of your passion.