Breathing update

Today was my annual visit with my pulmonary specialist, who I've been seeing for about 13 years now. When I started seeing him (I've been asthmatic since I was 4 years old), I was trying to volunteer for a new med study. You had to qualify with certain criteria, and one thing was a pulmonary function test. Breathe into a tube, while the computer registers your lung capacity, litres of air, force of exhaling, etc. When I finished the test, the tech asked if I was ok. I was...she asked if I was having a "bad day" breathing wise...I wasn't. She asked if this was "normal" for me...it was. This wasn't boding well... She then explained that I had a breathing capacity of 28%. That is less than one third of ONE lung!!! And I thought it was just another day. Off to see Dr. Field, who took one look, threw out all my old meds and started me on a new regime, including seeing him once every 3 months. As I gradually improved, it dropped to every 6 months, and for the last few years, just once a year. I now breathe in the low 90%, I am proud to say, and he is blown away by my dedication to running and my overall health. Although he didn't say much about my 25 pound weight loss since last year. Oh well, I'll toot my horn about that!

Once armed with a year's worth of prescriptions, I left in search of coffee! Sadly, as part of my PFTs this morning, I had to do the dreaded 4-shots of Ventolin. That's the rescue inhaler, which I have not used for an attack since I don't when. One shot before a run or boot camp, and sometimes another about 10 minutes in, and that's it. Taking 4 shots at once is not a good thing!! Your heart races, your nerves go AWOL and you shake like a junkie looking for a fix. So adding 5 shots of espresso on top of that couldn't do any harm, could it?! Got to work and found out that my boss will be back part-time starting today, which is remarkable, given her face paralysis. She looked good, but said she was exhausted by the time she left.

Lunch was a Thai chicken salad from work, and dinner was the chicken breast I had marinating in the fridge since Saturday...it was delicious and melted like buttah! A side of coleslaw (cabbage, carrots, celery, craisins and pumpkin seeds with a dressing of mayo, sour cream & Epicure Sweet & Spicy mustard) and baked sweet potato fries rounded out the plate.

I went to Boot Camp tonight, since last night I was running 10K, and I think everyone waited to come tonight! There must have been 40 of us there!! Although I have to say I prefer our 5 pm start over the 6 pm...all I wanted to do in between work and boot camp was nap, and that would have been bad!

Trainer Josh worked us all extra hard, and that helped seal the deal that I will be a no-show Friday and Monday, so that I can save my legs for Sunday. That is hard for me to do...I am all "go big or go home" and it's difficult to say "I will just rest"...but I will just rest. Yes, I have time goals for the race, but of course the biggest goal is upright, smiling and injury free. This will go a long ways to insuring the "injury free" part of that goal!

Okay, time for me to shut down. Why do I laze around all night and then find my mojo at 10:30pm?!

Later,