make inhalers a little happier

So I'm a girl. But specifically, I sometimes refer to myself as a four-year-old girl, despite my actual age of nineteen. There are various reasons for this. I'm not a fan of "adult" food [you know, salad dressing, grown-up vegetables, legit coffee . . . or when my food touches.]
Oh yeah, and I like things like stickers, play-doh and being unnecessarily loud.

Back to the stickers. So, I have a couple handfuls of inhalers that have made their way into my life. Three control inhalers and like, five or six rescue inhalers [they just live everywhere, and I can still never find them, but yeah]. And over the years I have accumulated a box of stickers.
The thing is, some inhalers are kind of yucky looking. Namely, boring Atrovent [white/clear/green cap] and Pulmicort [white and brown Turbuhaler]. Like really, I can deal with blue ventolin and red and white Symbicort [ooh . .. Canadian!], but boring inhalers and I just don't get along well.

And since I make sure I take all the joy I can out of living with this stupid disease, I stick said stickers on my inhalers. Sometimes if I'm doing something special I'll make the rescue inhalers more colour-y-ful and colour blank address labels and put 'em on [this works great if your inhalers don't have pharmacy labels or you're cool with taking them off]. So I made a pink one for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation Run for the Cure in October '09, and a red, black and white one for the Multiple Sclerosis Society's MS Walk in April '10 -- and if you've got exercise-induced asthma and are doing a charity walk, having a themed inhaler makes it just a teeny bit less awkward to use around all the other walkers/runners. And, if I'm not doing anything special, I just make pufferfish with my fish stickers that I got when I was like seven and never used. Or Flintstones or butterflies. Whatever.

The trick with stickers, especially shiny ones, is to cover them with clear packing tape. Then, they look pretty and don't get worn out when they're in your pocket, backpack, getting pummeled into the sidewalk, etc.

Another thing is if you have kiddos, or are a kid at heart [like yours truly], AeroChamber makes the AC Girlz and AC Boyz spacers. Spacers are way, way important, and these ones make things a little more fun. Mine's pink with butterflies and grass on it. Compared to my boring blue [and beat-up] spacer, it is rad.

A few weeks ago I was working one-on-one with a girl at my church's youth retreat. Turned out she had asthma, and her mom handed me her inhalers and spacer before we left [and didn't have to give me the rundown since I know asthma well]. So one night when she was being a little difficult about taking her inhaler, I was like "Okay, let's do this together, then". So, she actually took her inhaler AND got all pumped about my pink spacer and my stickered inhalers.

And really, it might not make things FEEL better physically, might not make the inhalers work any better, but sure as heck the unicorn sticker on one of my puffers makes me smile a little more when I'm getting particularly frustrated with my lungs.

Anybody have new inhaler decorating ideas to share with the well, then community? And, if you or your kids do this or begin to do this, I'd love to see your artwork inhalers!