Treadmill...who needs a treadmill?

Deciding to write about my experiences with having COPD at the urging of friends and family puts me in the position of being obliged to say something about the way I am feeling, or trying to get around my feelings, rather more regularly than I would choose, but understanding that it is the only gift I can give my loved ones and others who may be wondering how they are going to feel, or cope with or ignore their own feelings, based on their own issues,  I am willing to give it a go. I have to talk about my treadmill.

Of course, nothing else matters when you can't breathe, and many of us with compromised lungs have experienced the panic of feeling unable to catch our breath and resume breathing normally.  But, being completely unable to breathe is not often the routine state of affairs for folks like me with COPD; so it's more likely I will fall into the trap of not being able to breathe well enough to do something I want to do at the time, and therefore deciding not to do anything. Like not walking on the treadmill when I really can't walk outside.

I am my own worst enemy when it comes to staying ahead of the depression that can cloud my thinking and make me absolutely sure that the thrill of living is gone. I think it is important to remember that wisps of despair are always lurking, ready  to come looming in through cracks in my mind like malign spirits in old horror movies,  and must be assiduously pushed back out the way they are trying to push in, and not allowed  access to the space where my plans and goals for each day's activities are being evaluated and accepted. Because, it is from each day's decisions that weeks of depression are built.

No one starts out to be a constant victim of dyspnea (if you are going to be short of breath, you may as well know the snazzy name for the condition), or even worse, the threat of dyspnea. It's very easy to tell myself that no one else understands what it's like not to be able to catch my breath, or enjoy doing something,  and so I will just keep quiet, opt out,  and sit down somewhere out of the way to read a book, an activity that is almost guaranteed not to make me short of breath. Reading books is not the problem, either. Reading books is an excellent thing to do, and can be a source of great pleasure, but sitting alone and reading can become a prison without walls, a place where no one else is invited in and nothing is expected of me that will make me push myself to participate in life on any level. That is the problem. Books, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, computer surfing, television...even sewing or crafting, are  reasonable and pleasurable activities that must be put aside each day for periods of standing up and moving (if one wants to continue to be able to stand up and move...)

I am speaking to myself. I am all too aware that there will come a time when standing up and walking to the corner store will no longer be an option for me, and that that sedentary solitude is already the only life for many people with my same diagnosis, but for those of us who are choosing to live like that before it is forced upon us, thinking we can always change our ways if we want to, it's time to quit fooling ourselves. We are creating that reality and wanting people to feel bad for us. It remains to look into the corners of our minds for the dismal spirits lurking there, and force the depression out. It will take physical action to accomplish this.  In staring competition, depression remains  an odds-on favorite to win.

So, what am I getting at? Saying what is going on is always a useful thing for me to do. I can ignore almost anything that isn't being talked about, and since I spend a lot of time alone, talking about things often takes the form of writing about things for me. If I want to feel more positive and capable, I must be more active. So, it wasn't really a very smart thing to do to give away my treadmill because it didn't look particularly attractive in my front room, and now I can just buy another one. Sigh.

"Still crazy...."

Still crazy...
I have been trying to become  accustomed to a sort of "new normal" since I was diagnosed with  COPD stage 4 (severe lung disease) in 2007. 26 years of diagnosed COPD. I try to accept it and I just want to continue to engage in the new normal activity levels I have learned to be accustomed to. I had Lung Volune Reduction (both lungs) exactly three years ago, July 1, 2020. Right in the middle of the COVID lockdown (maybe more later). Now, indictions are that I am experiencing a returning loss in capacity for physical activity. The experience is eating away at my peace of mind. I wonder what the increasing shortness of breath I am noticing portends for the immediate future and, importantly, is it still in my power to combat the decline.  It's tiring work  curbing the inevitability of a grave illness. The need to hope for super-human ability to stand and face the inevitable can lead to a malaise that comes from the certain knowledge that one is only staring down, not stopping what is indeed a death sentence. It seems not to matter that none of us is getting out of here alive; my situation begins to feel uniquely dire and hopeless. It's not...dire and hopeless, or unique. It is terminal. From this cunundrum comes at least some of the craziness.  Dire and hopeless kind of exemplify terminal conditions from a superficial point of view. But it's really a control thing. I NEED to be in control! I'm NOT in control of COPD  What's not dire and hopeless about that? Once upon a time, I would maybe get sick or hurt or something: I would get whatever; I would get a doctor's help if I needed it; I would get over the whatever and I would get well. Reality Check...new normal.

Here come the aphorisms:  You are not your disease. Life is a terminal condition. Take it to God. Be the best you that you can be. and on, and on. I really try not to carry the aphorism water to benched athletes. 

So what do I think is appropriate behavior in this situation? Well, it seems I am making another attempt to write  a blog no one ever reads, or even knows about. Yep, still crazy.  But the saving grace in this activity is that the writing itself reminds me that how I feel is not who I am any more than having COPD defines me.  

I am defined by what choices I make in the situations I face each day. My merit may be fluid, but my worth, my value, is cast in stone by my existence.  My value deserves that I  acknowledge and accept it. By thinking "on the record" I remind myself to live up to that infinite value. I remember a saying that since now is the only moment we are given in which to act, we are right to call it the "present."

This means that it is my activity: physical training, diet, good judgment and kindness; and attitude: shaking off fear, trying again and again to do what needs doing, thinking of others, that counts. It's  to not aptitude: inate ability, health, or strength; that count as my scores each and every day. One other thing: I am not the scorekeeper of record. I am blessedly evaluated for any legitimate judgment by a more generous spirit than I will ever possess.

I don't pretend to understand how  I what believe to be true really operates. . I only think I ought to pay attention and open my heart and mind to the dawn of a new day once in a while. My thinking often needs dragged out of circular craziness. Writing thoughts down to publish them is an exercise in accountability, if nothing else.

So, thanks for stopping to read this. My earlier baby step posts into the blogasphere seem to be locked. My only hope is that this attempt at Breathe Easy will help me be available to anyone who wants me to be there, including me.  Eighteen years without a thoughtless breath. Dang.