wowsers

well, today i had some unexpected exercise: lunchtime yoga (which i had kind of forgotten) and then i missed the bus and had to walk as quick as i could to the library to meet the kiddo. it's kind of sad when a brisk walk gets you huffing and puffing! but i guess that just shows how much i need the exercise.

for dinner, we had liver & onions with mashed potatoes & bacon. now, i knew the kiddo would probably would not want to eat the liver, but i thought i'd try it on him. after all, i liked liver as a child, maybe he's weird like me! no dice. so i ate his piece as well.

so, how nutritious is liver?



very! all my iron, selenium, b complex, everything! well, not c or e or potassium. i can never manage to get 100% of everything every day. i try to work it out so that everything hits 90% or more if i average it out over a week. forget last week, i was sick and all i could stand was toast. but this week i think i'll do just fine!

tuesday update

forgot everything this morning - inhaler, keys, travel mug, everything! bah.

by the end of the day yesterday i was pretty tired and breathless, so i decided against experimenting with the bicycle today. don't want to get worse before i get better. but i got off the bus two stops early this morning, and will meet the kiddo at the library and walk home from there, so that's something. not a lot, but something.

once i get through this, i am going to make a serious effort to try the couch to 5k thing. need to be strong to keep up with the little guy!

stupid lungs

well, for the last couple of years i've had chest pain/sickness of some sort the first two weeks of march, and this year it's come early along with the early spring (also known as lack of winter). saturday night i started feeling something and sunday i had a dry cough, chest pain and low fever. thought i'd stick it out, but monday i was feeling worse and the fever was slowly creeping up - it had passed 100 by the time i was on my way to urgent care after dinner (note to women in toronto: urgent care at women's college hospital is great for lack of waiting. i went there when i broke my foot, too). when i arrived, my blood pressure was on the high side (i normally have really low blood pressure) at 125 over 105 if i remember properly, pulse 76, and the bad one, blood oxygen 88. (it really oughtn't to ever be below 92).

actually probably the low blood oxygen is part of why i didn't have to wait at all. i went straight to a nice warm (80 degrees!) isolation room.

they had me blow into a thingy to measure peak oxygen, and it was in the neighbourhood of 300 or 350 (i couldn't really see) when normal for my height/age is 436.

so, they gave me basically a full day's dose of salbutamol and a full day's dose of another bronchodilator, which gave me crazy shakes/anxiety/palpitations, and then off to get a chest x-ray in a chilly room with a walk through chilly halls to get there. i must have looked quite terrible, as the radiologist was very sympathetic and told me i should ask for a pre-warmed blanket when i got back to my room (i didn't need to, the room was lovely).

of course, all of these things - the peak oxygen test, the inhalers, the exam, the x-ray - were all things they wanted me to breathe deeply for, and that's the hardest to do! i find being very still so i don't have to breathe much feels better. not the most healthy i know, but there you are.

anyway, i am pneumonia-free (yay) but taking two inhalers (a bronchodilator and a steroid) and some antibiotics for the infection (which i guess is bronchitis? i didn't even ask for the actual diagnosis, i was a bit out of it). and advil for the pain. the bronchodilator makes me shaky (i sat down at one of those pharmacy blood pressure gizmos whilst waiting for my prescriptions on the way home - my pulse was 102!) and the antibiotics upset my stomach. mainly i'm just tired and sore all the time.

and, now i'm starting to feel like i'm catching a cold (guess my resistance is low, no kidding). so i tried the neti pot this evening. not as creepy as i had feared! but weird.

i guess i do need to get sorted with a real family doctor though. i made the connection last night - my current family doctor (who i can rarely get an appointment with, and if i do she's an hour or more late, and then her office staff mess up the referrals completely) stopped being useful about the time that she introduced an "extended care" program of frills you could subscribe to for a hundred bucks a year. i didn't pay up. hmm.

the end is nigh!

i'm feeling physically quite terrible today. i overdid it on the weekend (45 minutes of shovelling snow, followed by 90 minutes of salsa lessons), and today i got me braces adjusted, which always results in a combination of sinus headache, sore neck/back/shoulders, and nausea.

but!

i'm getting them off!

just 4 more weeks!!

3 weeks from today i go in to get an impression done, and the week after that, blammo! 12 march is the day!

yahoo!!!!!

friday check-in

thought i'd do a little check-in with some stats to see how i'm doing so far. i confess i am feeling pretty cranky the last couple of days; i think being out two nights in a row (not for social fun stuff, but for a parents' group meeting and my night class) is just too much sleep interruption.

annyhoo, even with that challenge, i think i am doing ok. i am getting most of my nutrition needs met through diet (i am always low on the e and iron, so i take supplements for those - e is tricky as it seems the top source is nuts, which i find hard to eat with my braces - any suggestions for tasty-but-soft e-rich foods? i did have peanut butter for breakfast twice this week, as well as making peanut-butter cookies), and keeping my intake and output roughly balanced. although i feel like i "must" be burning more calories on my bike rides than fitday says i am; even though they're short, my heart is really pumping!

bicycling vs. the bus

passed a milestone today: left home after the bus i used to take had already gone, and caught up to it 2 stops before where i would have gotten off! yay.

i do miss the bus though. i miss my fellow riders, getting to chat, read, or knit on the way.

yesterday i left around the same time as the bus; it was just ahead of me as i came out of the garage, then i got ahead of it, then we were side by side at a stoplight. the driver opened the door and i said, "did you miss me?" and he said "yes! i wondered where you were!"

i do miss that. but i love feeling like me again, zipping about under my own power on my own time, not having to fret over whether i've missed the bus, or the bus is late.

also, i've managed to remember my supplements every day this week so far. woohoo!

yoga: day 1

just did first yoga lunch at work. felt ok during. then right after, i got a sharp pain under my left shoulder blade. now i just feel sort of "tingly." n.b. it was very basic beginner yoga, nothing too fancy.

good start to the week!

this morning i rode my bicycle & remembered my supplements! my toe wasn't precisely hurting, but was talking to me a bit on the ride. and it was a real work-out for my lungs - even though, let's be honest, a 10-minute ride should be no big deal. i rode to niagara falls once, right up the escarpment for crying out loud!

i also remembered to bring fruit to snack on.

trying to remember when last i used an inhaler, i think it was june maybe. for the past two years i have had a terrible time lung-wise through march. shortness of breath, stabbing pains, need-to-sit-and-rest-now type of moments. i ownder if this year will be any different, with the supplements, the exercise, and also the weird weather. in previous years, the troubles coincided with the advent of spring - snow melting, etc. etc. but right now, i look out the window, it's 8 degrees and sunny, and not a spot of snow to be seen anywhere. no "seasons" at all to speak of! unless we get a late dumping of snow, that is my big fear...

i did it!

i rode my bicycle today! it took about 10 minutes, with additional time for futzing ("where's my backpack? where's my headlight?"), and i was halfway here when i realised i had forgotton my helmet. whoops! we'll get it sorted tomorrow.

meanwhile, the hot article of today is about sugar, and how it's evil.

now, i love sugar. but i was thinking about it, and aside from the obvious sweet indulgences (which don't happen every day) i don't get that much of it, really. i drink my coffee black. i make my porridge from scratch, just barley flakes, sunflower seeds, and dried apricots. most of our food is made from scratch by me, as far as that goes, so we avoid a lot of the "hidden" sugars that are added to processed foods like pasta sauce and whatnot. i don't drink pop, i don't even drink much juice (not sure if monster juice has added sugar, actually). the packaged foods i buy are mostly from the health food store, so again, no added weirdness in the peanut butter etc. basically the only foods we eat with sugar in them are obviously sugary things like jam, and of course i make cookies and pancakes on the weekends, but we don't eat that stuff every day.

so that's another bit of good news on the good news front! trying to make this blog more positive instead of just complainy.

baby steps

i've managed to walk to work on more than a few changes since i started my new job! yay.

next step: bicycling to work instead of ttc. i tried to take the bike in for new tubes on monday, but they were closed. went back last night, dropped it off, should be able to pick it up tonight. i have class tonight, which should be a good opportunity to see how long it actually will take me to ride to work. but i will definitely need to get a light first!

also, i just signed up to do yoga here at work.