Starting again...
Jan. 11th, 2012 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisI didn't sleep quite as well last night. I had a hard time getting to sleep and then kept waking up. Finally I gave up just before 6 and turned on NPR to listen for while.
Then I ran a comb through my hair and threw on some clothes and walked down to MacDonald's for coffee and a sausage biscuit. It's not a really long walk - maybe the equivalent of a couple of long city blocks. Maybe a little longer. I decided to walk because I wanted my legs to remember they are there. Since we aren't swimming, they aren't getting much action.
I walked down there at a normal pace and we fairly winded when I got there. Not horribly but clearly not breathing without thinking about it.
When you are fat, being winded is not unusual, at least I don't think so. The allergist doctor asked me about a dozen times 'did you have no breathing problems before you got sick in October? I kept saying no and then finally realized... 'I get winded with a lot of exertion but I always thought that was because I was fat.'
Turns out, he says, mostly it was not being fat that caused it (being fat didn't help, however)...
But I do know that it used to take a lot more to get me winded. I could walk easily from here to MacDonald's last year without thinking about it. And I could walk the show floor for longer than an hour without running out of steam. This COPD, in me, gets bad when I run out of air to breathe - gasping and panting and when I just go too long and then I just feel vaguely not well and really tired.
I'm trying to pay close attention to these things so that I can 1) be able to recognize any improvement and 2) know when it's getting worse and I need to do something more or different.
But enough lung shit. I think now I'm going to get a shower and get dressed and hit the streets. It's about 2 miles from here to the Venetian. I'm going to scooter it.
Then I ran a comb through my hair and threw on some clothes and walked down to MacDonald's for coffee and a sausage biscuit. It's not a really long walk - maybe the equivalent of a couple of long city blocks. Maybe a little longer. I decided to walk because I wanted my legs to remember they are there. Since we aren't swimming, they aren't getting much action.
I walked down there at a normal pace and we fairly winded when I got there. Not horribly but clearly not breathing without thinking about it.
When you are fat, being winded is not unusual, at least I don't think so. The allergist doctor asked me about a dozen times 'did you have no breathing problems before you got sick in October? I kept saying no and then finally realized... 'I get winded with a lot of exertion but I always thought that was because I was fat.'
Turns out, he says, mostly it was not being fat that caused it (being fat didn't help, however)...
But I do know that it used to take a lot more to get me winded. I could walk easily from here to MacDonald's last year without thinking about it. And I could walk the show floor for longer than an hour without running out of steam. This COPD, in me, gets bad when I run out of air to breathe - gasping and panting and when I just go too long and then I just feel vaguely not well and really tired.
I'm trying to pay close attention to these things so that I can 1) be able to recognize any improvement and 2) know when it's getting worse and I need to do something more or different.
But enough lung shit. I think now I'm going to get a shower and get dressed and hit the streets. It's about 2 miles from here to the Venetian. I'm going to scooter it.