Sunday, July 3, 2011

The puffer stopped working

Jon. Rocking the Rawland.
For a few days after I got my puffer,  I could kind of breathe. I was tired, weak, out-of-shape, and slow. But I could sort of breathe.

I'm regressing. Again. And I just can't explain how frustrating this is. So I won't try. Have a beer.

In any case. I took a lovely, but slow ride this morning with Councilman Snyder.

The beauty of this area (Kettle River/Orient/Boyds) is that you can do crazy long Nat'l Forest rides or crazy beautiful road rides with smatterings of dirt thrown in. And there's nearly zero traffic. And I can't believe it's not crawling with other cyclists.

Jon and I did a short loop before the rest of his family and friends woke up this morning: a nice climb from the Barstow Bridge that rose above the Kettle River, then opened up to farming land, and then continued with a short climb around a mountain and descending into Orient, then followed the river back to Barstow.

The climbs are perfect: sort of long and gentle, my favorite -- and normally, I'd stand into them and take them at a moderate pace, then ride through the end of them. But today it was granny all the way.

The best part was the descent into Orient: twisty, gravel, and steep. It's a challenging descent.

5 comments:

bmike said...

Sorry to hear. I suffer from asthma - this winter and spring were tough. I finally had a proper pulmonary workup and was put on a twice daily steroid inhaler. Its worked wonders. My test numbers are still pretty poor, but doc says it takes 3 months minimum to get back to normal, and then slow progress from there.

Best of luck and hope you find your lungs. Not being able to breathe sucks...

Owner 2 said...

Hope you find the right combination! Keep at it.

bentography said...

fuck yeah, rad to see Jon out there on the dirt roads!

EvilElf said...

John, definitely worth talking with your pulmonologist about. It is odd that you would not have had asthma when you were young and you have it now.

A friend of mine thought she had adult-onset asthma for a long time. Finally, she was diagnosed with "pigeon handlers disease." She was allergic to the dander of some birds she had recently adopted.

Sarah reminded me that there is a great asthma/allergen clinic in town. But, I reckon you already know about this stuff.

Friendshiply and paramedically concerned!

Rachel said...

I did get "adult" onset asthma, starting at puberty, worsening between ages 13 and 20. At 20, they finally gave me a twice-daily inhaled steroid like bmike talked about. I sing its praises. If I didn't have that, I wouldn't be able to climb a flight of stairs without nearly passing out, let alone ride a bicycle.

There are definitely still options for you, so don't resign yourself to having to live with this new issue and keep working with the doctors to find something that works. :-)