I Coughed Up Elmer's Glue

7:30am: So I wanted to wake up a little earlier this morning, but when the alarm went off at 6:45am I still felt like somebody had put me into a medically induced coma. Since I woke up at 4am yesterday, I decided to cut myself some slack and sleep in for just a bit. It was very well worth it. I woke up feeling very refreshed and ready to take Jezzabel for a spin around the block. When I took off though, I could tell that this was going to be a more difficult walk. I think being off of my normal routine (with the vacation and all of the CFF events) has set me back a bit. My lungs have been way tighter the last couple of days and my mucus is much more thick and sticky. Luckily, it hasn't yet changed into all of the colors in the rainbow, so hopefully that's something I can avoid for a bit. It's also been tougher to get it out and up. I had to cough really really deep this morning to get the stuff moving and instead of it coming right up, it often took multiple coughs. It felt like I was working Elmer's glue out of my lungs and out of the back of my throat. How do I know what that feels like you say? Let me tell you.

When I was 8, I had a fascination with Elmer's glue. I would constantly be making little art projects with it on construction paper. You know the type: trees drawn with crayons and then cotton balls glued down to make the clouds. You could even color the glue green with food coloring to make the grass. Anyways, I always had Elmer's glue in one hand and a Popsicle stick (or some other applicator) in the other. One day I got the bright idea to taste the Elmer's glue. I didn't want to wait either, so I unscrewed the top, held it over my mouth and then squeezed. We all know what happened next, glue went shooting down into my mouth into my throat (and all over my chin) so much in fact that I started to gag. The gagging led to coughing and then at some point I inhaled. Boom, Elmer's glue down the ol' wind pipe! I coughed and coughed and coughed until I finally worked all of the glue out of my throat and out of my lungs. I also made the mistake of trying to wash down the excess glue with a glass of Kool-aid which then turned into a tummy ache for the next couple of hours. So anyways, that's how I know what it feels like (DISCLAIMER: That story was completely and utterly false. I was just working on my creative writing skills. How'd I do?)

Ok, back to reality. If I had to GUESS what it felt like to cough up glue, it would be what I felt this morning. I coughed most of the way through my walk, but towards the end I really started to open up and the mucus thinned out a bit. I'm going to focus on not missing any treatments this week (I think I missed 4 of 28 last week) and doing more cardio at the gym (definitely been slacking there). Let's hope this works and that I can stay out of the hospital for a couple of extra weeks.

Total Distance: 2.1 miles Time: 37'27"

3:00pm: So today was shoulder and leg day at the gym. To remind you, this is always the "easy" day cause I only do rehab type of lifts on my shoulders and then legs I tend to go light on the weight. It is a little tougher than my other workouts though in terms of cardio cause I never take a break. I alternate with Mandi from shoulder to leg to shoulder etc. I always have a good sweat going by about the 3rd exercise. The lifting portion of our gym session went well and then it was on to some cardio. I need to step it up this week because my lungs are a bit tighter and junkier than normal. Today, I chose to do the exercise bike. I'm not a huge fan of them because they always make my butt hurt, but I didn't want to pound on my foot at all. I picked up a July 2009 issue of US News and World Report and started pedaling my "little" tooshie off. 30 minutes later I was drenched in sweat and my lungs felt pretty darn good. I actually did less coughing than I expected to do (I'm sure the people next to me were thankful for that) but when I did cough I was able to get stuff moving. When I got off the bike I felt that "high" that only exercise can bring and made my way to the locker room...slowly, cause my butt was asleep. Current Weight: 186 lbs.

Total Distance: 7.1 miles

Total Distance for Day: 9.2 miles