Today, it was cold & rainy. Normally, I’d stay in but made a conscious choice not to. I still decided that I needed to get out to the community center & get in my exercise. Despite the rain, I also wanted to get out of the house for a bit to get a little bit of fresh air & change of scenery.  I still have days where I give LAM a good spanking.  Today, thankfully was one of those days. Hopefully, there will still be more…

I managed to do this with a liter less continuous oxygen than yesterday. Maybe my body is finally adjusting & leveling off now that I’m getting the kind of support I need? Who knows for sure.  Hopefully, when the respiratory therapist observes me over at the community center on Monday & re-tests me; we can get a solution to this up & down with the saturations & liter flows in addition to a workable system.

Since a few weeks before the transplant evaluation (I would definitely say at least Mid-August), I could no longer do a mile, either walking the track or on the treadmill. It hit me as a hard loss for reasons I can’t even explain.

But maybe this is why.  It’s frustrating to me because I was someone who even with reduced function close to 50 percent was climbing this memorial to the observation deck not-so-many years ago:

I was pounding the pavement daily in New York for over 10 years — all over the city.

I also still remember when I had about 70 percent of my lungs left walking about 6 miles out to this lighthouse from Montauk in 2003 or 2004, just for the heck of it, not realizing how far it was.  (I also walked back).

I have always been one to gravitate towards memorials when I go places (& museums), especially if I have time to sightsee.

(I don’t consider it cheating that I took the tram to the top of Alcatraz in May; I still made it to the top and enjoyed the view & touring the prison.)

I know the days will come again where I’ll be able to do things like this unencumbered, so I don’t cry over it; but for now the warrior in me is satisfied with that mile or even as close to it as I can get.  Each day that I can, the stronger I’m keeping my present lungs; the stronger I’ll be for my new gift.  I fight like hell for that reason at least 3 days a week, more if I can manage.

I’ve never really been a runner. Even as a kid when I’d try to for track (even though I was doing shot put & disc), I thought running a mile would kill me & some days it did feel that way.

However, (now of course when I physically can’t), I have a building urge to want to & have felt this urge continue to grow within the past year or so.

In fact, when I was testing out different things to see what my body could or couldn’t handle, I was still able to run two of those dreaded hill sprints (anyone from Clark High School remembers running those on the golf course) and not desaturate too badly (right at 90 – winded & lowest possible point, but still safe; slower, but did them).

So, everyone needs goals right?   I already told my friend & caregiver during one of our Philadelphia treks I was toying with running/walking (or combo of both) a 5K once I recovered.  (Maybe I’ll do it in the Transplant Games, with a round of field hockey for kicks & giggles if that chance should present itself, who knows).

Well, I think the time has come to plant that 5K seed as a firm post-transplant goal.  I don’t know where or when, but I see it happening.   I wouldn’t see it, if weren’t meant to happen at some point.