doctor doctor give me the news I got a bad case of lovin' you

Apparently Albuterol is a magic elixer of sorts. I used it before I swam yesterday morning and actually pushed myself pretty hard without any extreme coughing despite the massive quantities of yellow fingerpaint I am able to ejaculate during Vest time. And Vesting seems to be the bane of my existence (which I do with HTS). I didn't use the Albuterol again yesterday since before my morning swim and during my evening Vest I thought I was going to die. I was coughing anc coughing and coughing to the point of gagging and puking and it felt like I wasn't going to get anything more up even though I could feel it rattling around in there and it HURT. So after that I used the Albuterol again and lo and behold...I felt fine. It is my expert opinion that I have a nasty case of bronchitis. But I could not get my doc nor the NP on the horn yesterday; clinic isn't again until the 14th of November and I just feel annoyed. This clinic of mine sucks. I really do like my doc as a person, but I just don't feel they are in this to be proactive, it feels more like a charity thing. I dunno.

how come I can pick my friends but not my nose?

I'm sick. My little cold is now a raging chest infection. Damn it all to hell. I am actually sick enough to call the clinic rather than just have my stepmom write me an rx. I can't breathe and I have filled a solo cup with gunk. LOVELY. I am still going to swim tomorrow. It's weird this one, it's like deep in there....I can't explain it. Very hard to get up. And my head. Don't get me started on my aching head. I didn't go to class tonight either.

Enough complaining. Thanks for listening.

Oh, and. I've been a momma for 9 years today. My boy. Nine.

beautiful beautiful beautiful, beautiful boy

Today is one month of swimming. I filled out a mile card to keep track of how far I've swam and it looks as though I have swam about 5 miles during that time. Accordng to the scale in the locker room I haven't shed a single pound. I feel better though. Each time I leave the locker room, wet hair dripping, face flushed, I feel successful: I am being proactive; I'm doing something. I'd love to see the fruit of my labor in the reduction of cottage cheese on the backs of my thighs, but I am not as upset about it now. Well, no, I guess I am. But I still feel better physically. Next week I push myself to 900yds (36 laps) which is a half a mile.

I have a cold though. An ugly one. A stuffy nose seal barker cold. It sucks. I am holding off on abx as I don't feel it is in my lungs yet and I am hoping with swimming and vesting I can keep it out of there.

My son turns 9 on Monday. For nine years I have been a mom. My boy is a challenging child and I don't always feel I've done a great job of being his mom. I constantly worry I am fucking him up somehow and that i can do better. But I am also pleased that I've seen him this far along. He's a beautiful albeit mixed up little soul and i pray each night that I am here to see him continue to grow and flourish - and to someday be able to look back on this childhood from a standpoint of success.

with your bitch slap rappin'

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sniff me out like I was tanqueray

Yesterday while I swam, I got SOB. I have never been SOB while exercizing...well except after I ran the 440 in high school in my ill-fated attempt at the track team - that left me gasping for air, but it still wasn't the same.

I have a routine down. I start with a warm-up followed by a kick set, a sprint set, more kicking, a few laps of each stroke and a warm down. I am up to 30 laps. I'll add two more laps this week.

Anyway, during my warm up I had to cough. As I've stated before, I can cough and swim. I mean I can't have a huge coughing attack, but I can hack one up and swim at the same time. Years of swim training results in all sorts of interesting abilitites. So, I was warming up and coughing. Coughing early in any exercize routine is normal for me. I usually cough cough cough and then I am pretty clear for the rest of the time. But I coughed and then I never really was able to catch my breath. Each time I turned my head to breathe I was gasping and left feeling like I wasn't getting enough air in. It was scary.

But the thing is, I didn't stop. My warm up is 8 laps and I just refused to stop before that. It was like a pride issue or something. Or serious denial. Or maybe the fact that there was a cute lifeguard. I dunno. I just know I kept swimming (just keep swimming swimming) even though my body was begging me to lift my head and doggy paddle whilst gasping for breath. No way.

After that I had my 6 laps of kicking and I felt much better. My sprint set was fine and didn't feel SOB, so I don't know. I do know that after my swim my face was RED. I always get red after a serious work out, but I didn't feel I'd worked out that hard. I looked like it though.

I hope it was a fluke. A clogged airway or something because it really sucked.

And now, Halloween party pictures.


My mom as Cruella De Vil and my babe, Elmo


My step-mom and dad. MY dad refused to wear his clown hat so he dubbed himself "Shaka de Clown"


My husband, the cowboy and his sidekick Elmo.


My stepson - a hippe. ~Sigh~ he has so much to learn.


Elmo and me


Moi

standing in the shower thinking

I've tried to avoid it, but this keep s popping up on blogs I read. So, I'll play along. Here are 6 quirky facts about me:

1) I am a pack rat. I keep all sorts of odd things for art projects that never seem to get done: a wood table top, He-Man sheets (these will get used!), old wine glasses, etc. This drives my husband insane. He throws ev erythig away (even perfectly good things that could be used for a future art project!)

2) My dad used to lie about my age all the time to get me into stuff for free since I was so tiny and always looked youger than I was, well at least until I turned about 29. Now I apparently look like an old hag and no one ever doubts my age. Anyway, the last time he did it I was 20 and we were in France going to the Louvre. My step sister was also 20 and my brothers were 16. My dad was trying to say we were all under 16 to get us in for free. The woman at the gate would not let my step-sister and (little) brother in as under 16 but I waltzed right through. She and my dad ended up arguing - her in French and he in English which I, the lone French speaker in our group, had to mitigate. We all got in for free.

3) I won the presidential physical fitness award several times through my school years. Me, the little Cf girl! :)

4) I gave birth to my daughter 13 minutes after we arrived at the hospital. I would have stayed home and had her in the shower if it were up to me, but my husband literally dragged me to the car. Want a natural birth? Don't go to the hospital and if you do, wait until the last possible minute! :)

5) My friend Laura and I wrote a 100+ [age novel in the 5th grade called "Wake Me if I'm Dreaming" I still have it.

6)I had a boyfriend in collge who idolized Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction. There is a little cult flick Perry made called "Gift" and in it, he wears a dress adn these long crpcheted gloves. My boyfriend used to wear one of my old spandex dresses over his army pants and long home-made crocheted gloves. Boys wearing dresses in Middle America doesn't go over all that well with the masses. But it was fun.

If you've read this, you're tagged. 6 quirky things. go.

how long 'til my soul gets it right?

An old friend I'd found on Facebook emailed me yesterday. It was an article from a San Franciso paper that mentioned CF and the cost of caring for CF. I actually had no idea that this old friend even knew I had CF. And that he'd think of me after all these years. It was interesting. I wrote him back and further explained some of the information the article touched on. And I was OK with that. There was a time I would have been mad at someone for sending me a Cf related article because I WAS NOT LIKE THOSE PEOPLE. The farther away that time gets, the funnier it seems.

So the swimming. I realized yesterday that I am not pushing myself as hard as I can because I don't want to cough. I still cough a bit as it is, enough for someone to comment on it already. But if I really start working I am going to do some serious coughing and I just don't want to. While I have masterd the ability to cough underwater and cough while swimming (oh, yes I have!) those aren't productive enough coughs to be able to hide a serious coughing attack. Damn this disease.

I also had another swimming epiphany. My dad put me in competitive swimming when I was 9 as a means to keep my lungs clear as I was completely out of control if my paretns tried to perform manual CPT on me. I HATED the swimming. I was always the smallest, slowest one. I could never keep up. After 20 years it finally occurred to me that maybe that was Cf related??

Now, I have to admit that changed in high school. The team I was on as a kid was a serious USS swimming team. When I got to high school I was actually pretty good, because it was a different caliber of swimmer and having trained as a USS swimmer for years before I was not too shabby as a high school swimmer, which made me like swimming a lot more. I eventually became a co-captian of the team and was an alternate at State. But still, I did hit a plateau in my swimming that I never did get over while other girls who had been slower than me eventually passed me by. It never, ever occured to me until just the other day that Cf could have had a thing to do with any of this. But maybe it did? If so, I am actually glad I was in denial for so long, as how easily that could have become a crutch or an excuse for failure?