I am the queen of the backhanded complement!
You really should give up smoking - all the best with that, im sure its not an easy thing to do.
My daughter has asthma (as does every kid in the UK these days), but its got less as shes got older. It must be terrifying when you literally cant get a breath. Kitten has been in hospital 4 times with it when she was a little kitten. I used to have to throw a sickie from work to spend time in hospital with her otherwise I would have had to take the time out of my annual leave.
Hope to see you at the next apostafest. Watch those man boobs tho. Although if you cant run its not like they'll be flopping up and down...