I'M ALIVE!!!!

I know it's been awhile since I blogged last and a lot has been going in my life including an emergency doctor's appointment, more medication and then a race. Let me back track.

If you know me or have been reading my life in blog form, you know that this allergy season has been beating my ass. You'll also know that allergies aren't the end of my medical woes. When my allergies attack my eczema and asthma join forces and attempt to kill me. (The saddest thing about this is that I'm not being overly dramatic.) I was in my doctor's office (one of the many) in early March. At that time we decided to start allergy shots again, he me gave more crap to put on my eczema and props for my lung capacity being at 108% that day. When I got home I realized that I forgot to get refills for my every-day inhaler (the one that actually keeps me alive). At first I wanted to kick myself but I knew the pharmacy would call and the office would fax the prescription over without any drama since I had just been seen. On April 2nd, two weeks ago, I called in my prescription to my pharmacy. I had a few days worth of medication left and I was sure I would get my new drugs in a couple of days at the most. No worries, right? Wrong!!! 

Jeremy went to pick up my medication on Wednesday (two days after I called it in) and it wasn't ready. The pharmacy hadn't heard back from the doctor's office yet. 

Lesson #1: 

If this happens again, ask the pharmacy to resend the request, now.

 I called the pharmacy on Friday to see if my medication was ready for pick up. Jeremy was going to go get it for me but I wanted to make sure it was there before he drove over. It wasn't ready yet. 

Lesson #2: 

If this happens again, ask the pharmacy to again resend the request and I will call the office, now.

As the week wore on, I was getting really low on medication. Over the weekend, I had to puff my inhaler more than once to get any medication out of it at all. By the time Monday came I was completly out of medication. I was on the phone back and forth between the pharmacy and my doctor's office. There was a blame game between the two, I never figured out where the breakdown of communication started but I had my medication that afternoon. Thank God!

I thought that I would be okay after being back on my medication for a couple of days, and if it was any other time of year I think I would have been, but the evil allergies used this time to attack in full force. By Wednesday afternoon I didn't even have the breath needed to call the doctor. Thankfully, Jeremy called for me and got me an emergency appointment that afternoon and I avoided a trip to the ER. 

The office I went to wasn't my asthma and allergy guy (they didn't call us back in time) but my general practice office. I saw the nurse practitioner and she couldn't believe that 5 weeks earlier I had a lung capacity of 108%. They didn't to a capacity test but I doubt it was more than 25% by the time I was in the office. She gave me a prescription for prednisone (a corticosteriod used to treat the inflammation in the lungs) and sent me on my way.

I took the next few days really easy. No workouts, Sami and Jeremy helped with making dinner and cleaning up after daycare and I was pretty much a lazy and pouty mess. On Saturday I was feeling pretty good. I even went to my first workout of the week, my beloved bodypump class. I was praying that I stayed strong through class and prove to Jeremy that it was safe for me to attempt the 5K I had the following day. Class was great and one of my class buddies and I decided to go early next week to try the turbo kick class before pump.

On Sunday I woke up early, got my race gear together and headed out to the zoo for the Zoo Zoom 5K. I was amazed at how great I felt. I tried out my lungs with some warm up jogs around the starting area and was super excited with how great I felt. It was a beautiful day, my lungs were working as designed and I got to be apart of my sister-in-law's first 5K too. It was a great day! I finished in 40:15-not even close to my PR (33:05) but I was thrilled that I didn't have to walk it or die trying to find the finish line.

Sunday was a great day for me on a more personal level as well. About three years ago I kind of "broke up" with my best friend. I'm not going to go into details but it was a traumatic time for everyone involved. Recently I've seen her at my gym and it made me feel really uncomfortable. Everyone I knew told me to just ignore her and pretend she wasn't there. I did this but it made me feel cold and on edge. I had no desire to be besties again but acting like she didn't exist didn't feel right. It tuned out that she was also at the Zoo Zoom and we ended up talking a little bit. Nothing really personal mostly about our kids, workouts, running and races. It felt good to not ignore her when we were in the same space. I don't know if this makes much sense to anyone else out there but it lead me to a new way of thinking.


I thought about this the drive back form the race and decided that I'm not going to completely ignore her anymore. If I walk past her in the gym, I'll say "hi". If we are in the same workout class together I'm going to knowledge her presence. If just feels right to me. I'm sure there are people who are going to read this and not understand why I feel this way. The truth is, I don't know why I do either but, if I learned anything from the event three years ago, it's to be true to myself and my feelings. If others don't "get it" that's okay. I'm the one who has to live with my actions.

So, there you go. Near death, bounce back, lung health, successful race
and even some mental and emotional healing too. Last week wasn't so
bad after all. No, the first half was that bad, scratch that last line.