Yup, I’m a severe asthmatic and my stress reliever is a cat! How weird is that.

One of the biggest problems of having asthma and living in a 120 year old Victorian house, is trying to keep the dust at bay. It’s not an easy task when you also have 3 indoor cats.. The fur collects everywhere. Now I know what you’re thinking…You’re an asthmatic and you have CATS? While my lungs are extremely sensitive to dust mites and other air-borne allergens, surprisingly, I’m not allergic to cat fur or cat dander, and therefore I choose to keep my furry feline friends. Nevertheless, pets create a lot of dust, so I vacuum frequently and I try to keep them out of my sleeping space.

Here are some of things Ive done to try to reduce the amount of dust in the area of the house in which I spend most of my time.

Today I did my first 11 miler (actually 10.8) of this training session and I think it went pretty well. I did a combination of regular walking and slow racewalking , finishing in just under 3 hours , which is just about right for this distance on a slow walk.
My body has become so conditioned to walking long distances, that even when I’m more short of breath than usual, I can still knock out a 10+ mile walk. I become so focused on what I’m doing, that having somewhat labored breathing doesn’t seem to bother me. Its not so much the dyspnea that slows me down, rather, it’s the bronchospasm which sometimes follows a long walk that cause big problems for me. And that’s exactly what happen today. The walk was easy as pie, but the aftermath might land me in the big house.

I was able to get through the walk with only 6 hits off my inhaler, about 2 puffs for every hour of walking, but by the time I made it back to my car, the puffer wasn’t cutting it anymore and I had to take a nebulizer treatment as I drove home. No biggie, that’s what usually happens after a long walk, but as the day progressed I got increasingly more wheezy and my PFs started to take a nose dive. Currently, I’m taking neb treatments almost every hour and only achieving minimal relief. I popped some extra ativan to take the edge off and will try to sleep propped up. If I get any tighter and/or my PF drops any lower…well, you know the drill. I’ll either turn around in the next few hours, or I’ll end up back on steroids or….lets not even go there.

So, for the year as a whole, it looks like I’ll be ending at just under 850 miles ,which is way down from previous years ,but probably not that bad when you consider I was hospitalized a record 5 times. It still averages out to more than 70 miles a month, and in total , more than 3,000 miles since I began this journey back in 2005. Walking has improved my health and made me stronger in so many ways. Now , if there was just a way I could do these long walks without making myself critically ill.
I don’t know about you , but I can’t say I’ll miss 2008 . Here’s to an easier, more gentle 2009 !

I leave you with more pictures of me and Winston.

My kids ..

Winston

Actually, Winston is just one of our little turkeys, but he seems to get most of the attention. We have another white silver tabby persian and a short haired black cat. I know what you’re thinking…You have bad asthma and you have 3 cats?
Believe it or not, I’m not allergic to cat fur or cat dander. Weird huh.
Anyways…

A good friend of mine , who knows I love cats….. sent me this video.

Winston’s favorite room has always been the kitchen. I remember the first day that he showed up at our doorstep, he went directly to the kitchen and plopped himself on the floor next to the stove. Now he spends most of the day ( and night) there.
Crazy like the occupants of this house.

It’s funny, the first thing people ask when they meet me in person is ……..How’s Winston doing?

Well, see for yourself…………..

Turns out that this is the second time in a week that this little cat was found by someone and taken to the animal shelter. After the first incident, the shelter kept it for a few days and then released it back to it’s owner.
Apparently the kitty got out again, and thats when it showed up at our door .
This time around however, the owner couldn’t come up with the fines and boarding fees, so she decided to relinquish ownership .

The way it works in this county , if the finder is interested in keeping a relinquished pet, they get a one hour window of opportunity in which to apply for adoption before the general public gets a crack at it. Needless to say, we were there within that one hour time frame this morning …….and we adopted him!

He’s ours next Tuesday after they neuter him
His fur is still severely matted and we’re hoping that they will shave him while he’s still sedated from the neutering surgery.

btw….His name is Winston!