Released from the hospital on July 14th, but still very sick. This was a real bad one. Will try to update in a few days when I’m breathing better. Thanks for all the well wishes!

I was going to blog about a nicer topic this evening, but my breathing kinda put a damper on that. Ive been flaring mildly on and off all week, but on Monday afternoon, my peak flows took a nose dive. In a matter of minutes my chest got really tight and my peak flows dropped from 350 to 190. A possible suspect for the flare -up could be allergies ,as my eyes having been bothering me too. The fact that I’m so tight and not wheezing, has me a little concerned.

It’s now 4 am Tuesday morning and I just emailed my doctors to tell them whats going on. Ive been awake all night trying to fight off this attack,but I’m starting to get a little pooped out. Ive been taking neb treatments every 30 minutes with only minimal relief and a few minutes ago I bolused myself with 60mg of pred. As crazy as it sounds, the only reason I haven’t gone to the ER yet, is because based on the way I’m feeling right now, they would for sure intubate me…yeah it’s that bad. I just can’t deal with the whole hospital thing again so soon. The thought of being jabbed and tortured with a million needles is a strong deterrent.

Its really difficult for me to update my blog to let people know how I’m doing when I’m sick or in the ER, but I always try to get word out ( my family reads my blog too). Hopefully this flare -up is more bark than bite, and I’ll shake it off by tomorrow. If not, number 95 might come sooner than expected. If I do end up in the slammer (it will say so on the sidebar), you can use this link to reach me.

OK.. I’m too short of breath to write anymore tonight. Everyone have a great week!

This is a picture of me on a ventilator during a severe asthma exacerbation . See the little IV bottle inside the blue rectangle with the milky looking stuff inside ? That’s Propofol !

Also known as Diprivan or “Milk of Amnesia” in medical circles, this is the drug that the media has been talking so much about in the Michael Jackson tragedy. When I heard the allegations that they found this drug in his home, I couldn’t believe it. This is the very same stuff they use on me when my breathing gets so bad that I require a breathing tube and a ventilator to breath. I can tell you from personal experience that is an extremely powerful sedative anesthetic. A great drug for keeping someone under during surgery (or in my case, being maintained on a ventilator), because it works so fast. You can basically control someones conscienceness with the flip of a switch. The moment the drug hits your blood stream you’re out instantly , and depending how rapidly the drug is infused , it can induce a coma state. When it’s time to wake you up, they simply stop the infusion and within seconds….. bam, you’re awake ( hopefully). But if something went wrong and you got too much of the drug or weren’t monitored properly, you could easily stop breathing. There can be other adverse side effects as well, such as lactic acidosis, something of which has happened to me on more than one occasion while on the drug.

The use of propofol during a severe asthma attack, is to basically put you to sleep (after you’ve been intubated), so that the ventilator can take over your breathing and your body can rest. They usually keep you in this coma-like state for a couple of days until you’re lungs are functioning better and you’re able to breath again on your own.

I guess the keywords here are …BREATHING TUBE and VENTILATOR…. You’ll notice in the picture, I’m wired from head to toe and hooked up to a breathing machine, not to mention I’m in an Intensive Care Unit! I can’t even imagine anyone being given this drug outside of a hospital setting.

If it turns out that there were physicians or nurses administering him this drug outside of a hospital setting,they should have their licenses revoked …….permanently!

Last Saturday I did my first post-hospital semi long training walk for the new racing season, but it turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. I was pretty much breathless the entire distance and had to terminate the walk at mile 7 instead of mile 8 as planned. Since my lungs tend to dictate how far and fast I can walk, it looks like the San Francisco (1/2) marathon is NOT going to happen for me this year. My lungs are just too screwed up right now to tackle a 13 mile walk. That last flare up really did a number on my body, and with less than 4 weeks to prepare, there’s no way Id be able to pull it off. I’m a little bummed, because I really thought Id be healthy enough, to not only do the race, but also be able to push myself hard enough to PR it.
I may, as the date approaches, sign up to do the 5K or progressive marathon just for fun. A lot of my friends do the various races at the SF marathon every year and it would be nice to at least hook up with them.

Assuming my lungs cooperate and I’m able to get myself back in the groove, my next real race will be the ET midnight marathon on August 8th. Once again though, I’ll probably downgrade to the 10K , because I don’t wanna stress myself too much until Ive had a chance to recondition. Last year I did the 1/2 marathon , but I think considering the environment, it was a bit too much for me. The 1/2 marathon course goes basically up the side of mountain for 7 miles and then down for 6.
The plan this year, is to fly out to Las Vegas the day of the event and then rent a car for the drive out to the actual race site. It will definitely be more tiring to do it this way, but I’ll have the flexibly of coming and going as I please and wont have to sit on a cramped bus for 3 hours.

I’m still mulling over my race choices for the fall. Some of the best races around here occur in October, November and December.

Check out Roxylns report about the Slacker half marathon/relay/4m run in Colorado. Boy, those mountains sure look beautiful don’t they?

What blows me away, is that this race STARTS at an elevation of 10,600 ft….thats 2 miles up! These two never cease to amaze me.

Received my Boston finishers certificate today. It took me more than 7 hours to do it, but I’m now officially the first person ever, with severe refractory asthma, to enter and finish the Boston marathon!

He won’t admit it, but even Winston is proud of me. I can tell, because his eyes are glowing green.(No, I’m not allergic to cats)

PS..Registration for next years race opens in September…hmmmmmm I wonder ?