No plans

One issue I'm still trying to figure out about living with COPD is guaging.  I can't guage how good or bad my breathing will be when I leave the house to go do anything.

I think if I sat still - like in front of the computer or TV - and rarely moved, I'd never know I had a breathing problem.  Before I got all these inhalers, I knew for sure most all the time.  Lying in bed gasping for breath is a giant clue.

BUT, with Advair and Spiriva and Combivent, I can breathe with the best of them, if no exertion.  

So when I wake up in the morning, I don't have any idea if it's a good breathing day or a bad breathing day.  And I don't find out until I move.  Yesterday started off fine, hit a pretty bad patch during the day and ended up fine.  For most of the day I had fits of a gross sounding honking cough.  I'm pretty sure that's remnants of the cold/bronchitis from last week.

This morning, I'm still in bed with the computer.  And so far, I feel great!  I've had coffee and some toast and I'm ready to rock and roll.  History says that may or may not be the case once I get off my ass.

I have no plans for today.  I'm going to hold off swimming one more day. I think this morning, I'm going to get up and get dressed and take a walk. I'll stay around here in case I mis judged my capacity.  Happily there is good walking close by.

Walking my pretend dog

That's what I did this morning.  Walked the dog, tested my lungs and stopped by the metro office for info (it has a glass front so I could keep an eye on my pretend dog which I pretend tied up just outside the door - in case PETA is reading this).

As I suspected, once I got moving, the breathing got a little more difficult BUT not horrible and way better than yesterday.  Very little coughing and no honking.  (And this was without using the rescue inhaler or the cough suppressent pill.)  I'm encouraged.

Also, as I suspected, the metro folks do not publish a map of the new downtown bus routes which is really annoying.  They have eliminated many of the routes and moved the rest.  There is a bus stop a block and a half from here and it now has only one bus that stops on weekdays about 3 times in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.  This stop used to have 5 buses and something stopped there every 15 mins.  More importantly, coming home, those busses stopped only a block away.  At night, in the dark, that was oh so handy.  Now, at night, in the dark, my best option is 4x thought either a drug den or a massive deserted parking lot.  Oh well, glad I have a great car!

Now I'm home and I think I'll read my book for a while.  My pretend dog is napping and so is my not-pretend cat.  This here is action central!!

Today's Basket

I thought this would happen sooner

I spent all day today... until 7 pm... thinking it was Friday.  I made all these plans (well, not *that* many but some) for tomorrow thinking it was Saturday.  Doh.  Retirement brain.