Hemoptysis Questions

Had a couple questions from a reader that I thought I would share regarding hemoptysis (coughing up blood). Hemoptysis does not happen to all CFers, but if it happens to you, it wouldn't be considered out of the ordinary. I answer all questions to the best of my ability - based on fact, combined with what I've picked up over the years and with a little dash of hoping I'm close:

What do you do after you've coughed up blood?

If I cough up blood I have a pretty standard routine...no pulmozyme for 24 hours. no vest for 12 hours. If clear for 24 hours I resume pulmozyme. I will exercise at 25% the day after the blood.

50% two days after. And if blood free, I resume all activity as normal the third day.

Hemoptysis seems to happen to me a lot at night time, is that the case for you?

It can happen because of the pressure change with laying down. Try sleeping propped up if you can...I've spent many nights sleeping sitting up!

Do your doctors know the source of your hemoptysis? I have bronchiectasis in my right upper lobe, and I understand that it is common amongst CF'ers, and my doctors believe that's what is causing the blood. Could you tell me more about bronchiectasis? Is it the cause for hemoptysis for most of us CF'ers?

Bronchiectasis is just a fancy word for damaged lung. Most all CFers have a varying levels of it and it really just a matter of when not if it will happen. That's what CF can do over time, damage lung tissue and airways. We must focus on doing everything we can do to keep our lungs open and clear. The more closed off and full of junk our lungs are, the faster damage happens.

Bleeding is often a result of infection or blood vessel thinning. Our vessels/veins have a tougher time getting blood to where it needs to go because of our damaged lungs and over time get bigger and thinner. If you look at them under CT, they look like big worms instead of how they should, spider webs or spaghetti noodles. As they get bigger, the walls of the vessels get thinner and are more apt to tear. When they tear, this can result in bright red blood coming from our lungs.

Thankful Thursday - No Morning Sickness

Know what time it is? It's thankful Thursday time! We checked into the Hole three weeks ago and it's time to celebrate a little thankful Thursday! We all have so much to be thankful for and we love to take this opportunity just to write down each and everything that comes to mind. as I mentioned, I no longer have the "linky tools" but I invite you to share your thankful blog in the comments section. Without further ado, here's what we're thankful for:

Mandi's List:

I'm thankful for feeling good. I haven't had any major nausea yet, so that's a big one to be thankful about. I have some really minor nausea if I haven't eaten in awhile, or I eat a lot (especially of sugar), but nothing like what some people talk about. None of this feeling like I'm going to vomit or can't eat (I have the opposite problem, I can't stop eating!) But I am very thankful to be feeling so good.

I am thankful for Thai food. Last night we had Thai food for the second time since Ronnie's been in the hole, and man do I LOVE it! It always hits the spot. The best part is there's a great spot right by the hospital, so it's a quick drive to go pick it up. I absolutely LOVE asian cuisine, but I think Thai is my favorite. I am so thankful to spicy, flavorful food!

I'm thankful that I have a husband that takes care of himself. I must say, I was ready for Ronnie to get out Tuesday. I am ready to get back into the swing of things. But I would much rather push off the swing of things to have my hubby at 100%. But the best part is, he isn't just sitting around saying, "oh, I'll get better". He's been doing extra treatments and running/walking multiple times a day. I am so thankful that he takes such an active role in his health. (I'm also thankful that he can put up with my hormonal crankiness - which I tried to mask - when I realized that we may be here a while longer, and snuggling in our own bed would have to wait....he's such a trooper!)

Ronnie's List:

I'm very thankful that Mandi is able to be by my side every single day that I'm here in the Hole. I realize that some couples aren't as fortunate and I can of course see that making this time of our lives much tougher. Not only am I thankful for the simple moments we share together in here, but I'm also thankful that she's so willing to run and go get food when the hospital tray just won't cut it!!

Speaking of the Hole, I'm thankful that my PFTs didn't go down on my last test. Granted, they didn't go up like I wish they had, but I'll take a no percent gain over a ___ percent decrease everyday of the week. I'm hopeful that I'll start to feel back on top of my game in the next handful of days. For me, it's not about the numbers, but whether or not I'm to a point that I'm able to kick booty outside of this place.

Here's a repeat from last week, but it still holds very true for today. I'm thankful that there has been no blood. I've gone on some intense run/walks for the past couple of days, and so far, no blood. My goal was to put these lungs of mine to the test and I think I'm doing a decent job of doing so. I can't say that it will equal the workouts I have at home, but the fact that there is no blood so far is a good sign! Let's just hope that this trend continues.

So, what are you thankful for today?

I've Sprung Another Leak!!

**Don't watch if the sight of blood makes you queasy**

An Update from Clinic - It's Crunch Time

Yesterday, I had clinic for the first time since I got out of the hospital in mid-September. They'd like me to come to clinic more often, but with the frequency that I do clinical drug trials, I always have a pretty good idea of where I stand PFT wise. I don't know about all of you, but that's definitely the part I always look forward to come clinic time. I must add however that I'm certainly not doing what's best for me or best for my clinic. It's obviously a better situation if they're able to track me more closely and if you want to get down to the nuts and bolts of it - it's better for the center. Every CF clinic relies on outside funding to stay afloat, so the more patients they treat, the more money they get. If I'm not going to clinic, I'm not getting counted, therefore they don't get all of the money they deserve (do you see where this is going?). If they don't get the money they deserve, it not only affects me, but all of my great friends, including the doctors, at my clinic. Get it? Got it? Good!

As promised, I showed up to clinic yesterday looking forward to what they had to say. I've been off of my game for quite some time now because of all of the bleeding, so it's always a touchy situation heading in to see the docs in that condition. Like I told them, it's not that I feel terrible, it's that I haven't been able to "do me" for almost 3 weeks now. By that I mean I haven't been able to be as active and workout like I'm used to and it can obviously catch up in a fairly short time. I saw them 2 weeks ago (at a drug trial) and expressed to them that other than coughing up blood, I felt pretty darn good. I wasn't very tight, my cough was stable, my mucus was clear and my energy was up. Yesterday I had to report that the blood is still an issue and now the 3 weeks of not working out is starting to catch up to me. I find myself tighter than usual. My mucus is becoming thicker. My cough is deeper, yet it's harder to move the gunk out. The sucky part is, I don't feel it's a result of CF as much as it's a result of me not being able to keep CF in check. And that is very frustrating.

I'm a "let's solve the problem" kind of a guy instead of sit around and talk about it. This happens to translate very well to my CF life as I'm able to look back on the past and pick out stuff that's worked for me health wise and stuff that hasn't. Once I identify what works, I don't go on and on about what I should be doing or what I wish I would have done, I strap up my boots and I go for it. Right now, I find myself in a situation that I can't "go for it" and it pisses me off. My bleeding has become so frequent that I'm not able to do full strength Vest treatments. When I bleed, I stop Pulmozyme for a bit and I stay off 7%. Exercising is out of the questions. Do you see how this can be a problem? Talk about a better way to feel worse! Believe me, this is it.

Some of you are probably saying, "well, why don't you get your butt into the hospital then???". To you I say, you guys are 100% correct. I present myself as a no-excuses kind of a guy and I feel like a hypocrite for putting it off. But part of who I am is to be open and honest with this blog and use it as a way to hold myself accountable. An even bigger part of that is acknowledging when I'm going against my own advice and call myself out on it. So that's exactly what I'm doing. Let me be loud and clear, I should be going into the hospital and nipping this whole thing in the bud. I should put my health before all other things I have going on, because without my health, I have no other things. I should stop, listen to my body, and take care of this bleeding issue so I can get back on the road to booty kicking.

With all of that said, let me tell you why my hospital stay is being delayed. I want to be a daddy. Mandi and I have been going through the IVF process for a good two months now and it's getting into crunch time. "My part" is coming up in the next 10 days and I have to be available when I get the call. Depending on how Mandi's body responds to those big old shots we started giving her, I could be called for my sample anytime between February 5th to February 10th. It's kind of hard for them to take my baby batter out (if you were unclear) up here in Phoenix if I'm down in the hospital in Tucson. And even more important to me than that, 6 days after they get my sperm, they will be implanting an embryo into my wife. Every piece of my being wants to be there for her on our special day. I realize that the creation of our family is very unorthodox and it's not just a matter of a bottle of brandy and a hot tub, therefore, I want to be as much a part of this as possible. Make sense? Maybe not to you, but I know to us it's very important.

So there you have it, an update from clinic. As always, could be better, but it could be worse. I'd love it if you guys could keep us in your prayers for the next few weeks. Please pray that my bleeding lessens and that my health holds up until I can get into the Hole. Also, please pray that the rest of this IVF process goes smoothly and, God willing, we're able to start our family. Thank you guys so much for your support, your prayers and the continued reading of this blog.

A Mental Break

Yesterday was just what I needed. After a three days of working and traveling across the country, I needed to just unwind. It started with a nice long walk with Jezzabel in the morning. I went from a place (Long Island) with a high of 25 while I was there, to walking my dog at 9 o'clock in the morning with shorts and a t-shirt on. When I got back, my beautiful wife had some coffee ready and I vegged out on the couch for a bit catching up on the U of A game that I had missed on Saturday. I was able to get in all of my treatments today without issue and even got out for another long walk with Jezzabel (we even brought Mandi with us the second time). Yesterday was just a great physical and mental break for me.

Now, anytime that I have days like that, I'm certainly not able to completely disconnect from my normal duties, but I don't feel as pressured to get them done right away. As I sit and type this, I know that I still have e-mails to return, comments to reply to and some loose ends to be tied, but there isn't such a sense of urgency. It's nice to feel that once in a while. I turn right around and leave for another short trip today, but this time it's a much more manageable plane ride to Vegas. Which remind me, if anybody wants to meet up, let me know. I won't have too much free time, but I may be able to sneak in a coffee at some point late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Point is, sometimes we just need to unplug and recharge. This is especially important when I start to feel a little worn down physically. All of the coughing up blood certainly didn't help last week (proud to report that I haven't coughed up any since Friday) but I think I may be on the mends now. I'm just looking forward to getting through these next few days and taking the weekend to unwind again. I'm looking at a possible hospital stay in mid-February and the hope is that I can maintain my lung function and my overall health until I can get in there. Wish me luck, I'm sure it will all work out :)

Freak Things Happen

So today Mandi and I were running around to doctors appointments, relaxing and, of course, observing MLK day the best that we could. Earlier in the day we had a fertility appointment to make sure that Mandi's eggs were still looking good and to go over how to give the shot that looks like a horse tranquilizer (I'm kidding, it's not that bad). We were also able to sit down with the doctor and go over some details about the whole process, which I'm sure we'll get into with you guys soon here on the blog. Just as a teaser though, stuff like how many eggs to fertilize, how many embryos to "put back" and what to do with the embryos we don't use at the moment. So as you can guess, it was quite the conversation, but we'll save it for another time.

Back to the part when we got back from the appointment. Wait a second, first let me set this up a bit. I've been feeling great. Mandi and I have been eating better. We've gotten back into the gym. We're getting back on track with exercise. I'm doing my treatments consistently and faithfully. I've noticed that my cough has decreased over the past couple weeks and my mucus has gotten lighter. All in all, no complaints, and I'm feeling pretty good. Now, I said all of that to say, today I coughed up blood, and a lot of it.

It was the weirdest thing. We pulled into our garage and just as I was getting out of the car, I felt it. It's a certain rattle that we get in our chest just before the blood comes up to play (you CFers know what I'm talking about). I walked out of the garage, coughed and spit. Sure enough. Bright. Red. Blood. I immediately made a dash for the bathroom sink because I didn't want to stain my rocks in the front yard! :) I coughed and coughed and coughed, each time bringing up the good stuff. There are different kind of coughing up blood episodes, those that just make your mucus a bit red and those that look like a murder scene. With each cough, blood splattered into the sink, and I'll I could do was hope that my aim was good. About 5 minutes and 1/2 cup of pure blood later, it stopped.

Ok, now what's the point? The point is, stuff happens. Stuff happens that we can't explain. Good stuff happens. Bad stuff happens. Life would certainly be a lot easier if we could explain everything, but it'd also be pretty boring. In this CF life, unexplained stuff can happen often. I think the key though is not what happens, but how we react. I didn't panic. I didn't get mad. I didn't stress out. Stuff happens. Stuff happens and we move on. Sure, I adjusted my treatment regiment today to try to prevent more blood, but other than that, I wake up tomorrow and I move on. I'll make sure to get four treatments in. I'll make sure to pay close attention to what my lungs are saying. I'll let my doctor know what's up on Wednesday when I have my (drug trial) appointment. Other than that, I do nothing different. I've been good lately about doing what I have to do to kick some CF booty. Faithful with my treatments. Faithful with exercise. Freaky stuff can still happen.

So I move on.

The Evidence of Blood Splatter

I don't really know how to say this without it sounding really strange, but if I turn up missing tonight and they suspect foul play, Mandi is not involved. Strange enough for you? Maybe I should take it from the top...

So this probably all started last Monday as Mandi and I recommitted to working our butts off in the gym. This includes morning walks, lifting weights at the gym, running and increasing our overall activity. This is good for us on two fronts: one, for obvious reasons, it's a good thing for my health and two, it gets us out of the house in which we seem to be in all day. Not that I mind, since it's actually what I prefer, but I must admit, we can get a little bit of cabin fever after working out of the house every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month. We've actually found a little local coffee shop, called, wait for it, "The Coffee Shop" which Mandi LOVES to hang and work out of. It is definitely a cool place to get some stuff done, but obviously at 1.85 a cup, we can't make it a daily habit. So anyway, I'm getting a bit off track, so let me get focused again...

...and I'm back. Last week I had a bit of hemoptysis before my clinic appointment. My doctor and I weren't very concerned however cause I'm doing well symptom wise on all other fronts and was just starting my Cayston, so we figured, if there was a bug going on, the Cayston would kill it. Now fast forward a week or so after that appointment and I had another bout with hemoptysis. And then finally, let's bring it all of the way to tonight, another episode. What's a little strange is all of these episodes have happened while I've been standing straight up. You say, why is that strange? Well, because 9 out of 10 times I'll start coughing up blood while laying flat on my back and usually in the middle of the night. So, it's a little strange that these have come while either walking around, or like tonight, making my nightly vanilla latte. I assure you, I'm not overly concerned, it's just a bit strange.

There could be a very logical explanation however, actually, could be a couple of them. First, I really think my rib injury set me back a bit and may have led to the irritation that has caused the bleeds. I know at times, I'll take a deep breath and can actually feel my lung rubbing up against my ribs. Can that cause hemoptysis? I don't know, but I wouldn't bet against it. Here's the other and most likely scenario though, it's probably the exercise. We've been hitting cardio hard and that's made me open up parts and use lobes that probably haven't been worked like this for a while. Today in fact I absolutely went all out on the elliptical and haven't challenged myself like that physically for quite sometime. So, if I were a betting man, I'd blame it on the exercise. That's not to say anything is going to stop, but it will certainly change tomorrow. I'll have to back off just a bit and make sure everything is all healed up before I push it again.

This brings me back to my first statement, Mandi is not guilty! I say this because we are big "murder show" buffs. On our DVR, 90% of it is First 48, 48 Hour Mystery, Primetime Crime, Dateline, etc. On most of the shows, what dooms the husband or wife when their significant other turns up missing is microscopic blood spatter. We just got done watching one in which they convicted a husband that was totally and obviously innocent, so it got me thinking...If I turn up missing, the cops are going to find a ton of blood splatter all over our bathroom. You may even find some on her clothing because she was standing right next to me and rubbing my back as I was coughing my brains (or my lungs) out. So, if you're reading this, she didn't do it, she's completely innocent.

Mandi, if you're reading this, don't get any ideas just because I've given you an alibi :)

My First Experience with Hemoptysis

**Reposted from August 2009**

I present to you the first edition of First Friday. I believe this idea came from Casey who wrote a blog about his CF "firsts"(click here to view) a couple weeks ago. Here are some examples of other's "firsts" blogs (that sure was a lot of the letter "s" at the end, how far off was I grammatically?) from Piper, CysticGal, Chrissy and Megan (if I missed yours and you'd like to be included, please shoot me an email and I'll add it).

What I've decided to do is highlight ONE of my CF firsts every Friday and try to capture exactly what happened and what I was feeling in that moment. It can be very scary experiencing something for the first time, so hopefully you guys can use this and other CFers' blogs as resources when those times occur.

My first bout with hemoptysis reared it's ugly head at about age 12. I distinctly remember coughing up so much junk that I ran to the toilet to spit it out. Now, for me, that was a big deal. Back then it didn't bother me at all to swallow mucus that I had coughed up from out of my lungs. Today, it's a different story, and I try to spit it out into a tissue (or on my floor). But this particular coughing festival produced much thinner mucus than I was used to and it did taste a little different than normal, plus, it was filling up my mouth. So I ran to the toilet to spit it out. Low and behold, my mucus was red. First I thought, "man what did I eat that made my mucus so red". Remember, I was a kid, a healthy kid, and hemoptysis wasn't even in my vocabulary.

As I leaned over the toilet and continued to cough up that lovely warm red stuff, it hit me, "Wait a second, it looks like blood and now it tastes like blood, hmmmmm, it must be blood!" Here's the deal though, I didn't panic. I don't know why and I still can't fully explain why I don't panic now 17 years later when I'm coughing up CUPS of blood (although I admit, coughing up multiple cups of blood while in CHINA, didn't produce the calmest of emotions). Back then, I remember thinking "this is kind of cool". I don't even think I told my mom or grandma (I was at her house when this happened) about the episode. I'm not a big fan of having people (especially my mom) worry about me. I do however know that people (especially my mom) worry about me already without bringing anything else to the table.

What's strange, is I didn't have another case of hemoptysis until well into high school or maybe even until college. After the age of 20 though it was pretty common for me to have a bout or two in between hospital stays. I would usually cough up around 1-4 tablespoons per bout. In recent history, I've been embolized twice for the hemoptysis, in November 2005 and February 2009. Both procedures were considered a success and I had very little bleeding between the two embolizations. Since February's procedure I have coughed up blood twice, but it was very little and during a run.

So there it is, my first experience with hemoptysis...wanna tell me about yours????

PS- I'm hoping to get no responses because none of you have ever experienced coughing up blood :) I can hope right?

Started a New Running Plan!

**I've been getting a lot of questions lately about how I started running and if there was any particular plan that I followed. Well, here it is, and I must say, it REALLY works! Just stick with it and I promise that you'll see great results :)**

So I was back to some running today and I must say, it felt better than I thought it would :) I was fortunate enough to be following the blog of my cysta Sara today after she posted a good running routine which should get my butt back into shape. I'm prone to listen to her since she ran in a half marathon only 35 weeks after her lung transplant! Plus, she is an amazing and awesome person with a super cool husband to match, so why not take her advice right? I started it tonight, but I plan on being on the 2nd week by Monday. And in the effort of full disclosure I did cough up a little bit of blood tonight on the run, but it was very little and mostly streaked, so I'm not worried. I did two sets of 7% pretty close together today so my lungs may be a little irritated, who knows. As long as there's not an increase in blood over the next couple of days, I should be fine.

So anyway, here is the running plan that she posted (courtesy of fitsugar.com):

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Friday	Sat. or Sun.
Week 1	Walk 6 min., run 1 min. Repeat 3 times (total 21 min.)		Repeat Monday's workout		Repeat Monday's workout
Week 2	Walk 5 min., run 2 min. Repeat 4 times (total 28 min.)		Repeat Monday's workout		Repeat Monday's workout
Week 3	Walk 3 min., run 4 min. Repeat 4 times (total 28 min.)		Repeat Monday's workout		Repeat Monday's workout	Repeat Monday's workout
Week 4	Walk 2 min., run 5 min. Repeat 4 times (total 28 min.)		Repeat Monday's workout		Repeat Monday's workout	Repeat Monday's workout
Week 5	Walk 2 min., run 8 min. Repeat 3 times (total 30 min.)		Repeat Monday's workout		Repeat Monday's workout	Repeat Monday's workout
Week 6	Walk 2 min., run 9 min. Repeat 3 times (total 33 min.)		Repeat Monday's workout		Repeat Monday's workout	Repeat Monday's workout
Week 7	Walk 1 min., run 11 min. Repeat 3 times (total 36 min.)		Repeat Monday's workout		Repeat Monday's workout	Repeat Monday's workout
Week 8	Walk 5 min., run 20 min., walk 5 min. (total 30 min.)		Walk 5 min., run 23 min., walk 5 min. (total 33 min.)		Walk 5 min., run 26 min., walk 5 min. (total 36 min.)	Walk 5 min., run 30 min., walk 5 min. (total 40 min.)

Once you're up to running 30 minutes straight, try to stick with this four times a week.

A Little Bit of Blood

6:45am: So one thing I forgot to mention in yesterday's post is that I coughed up a little bit of blood last night. It happened right before I went to bed. It wasn't pure blood, but it wasn't streaked with mucus either. It was mostly blood, with just a little bit of mucus. Good thing though is I only coughed up about 1/2 tablespoon. In my "coughing up blood" world, that's nothing. I may have dislodged a little mucus plug or something, cause it wasn't a usual episode. It only lasted for about 2 minutes. Anyway, all it did was motivate me to step it up today.

Waking up early on this Memorial Day certainly wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but I had more energy than I would have expected. I was up pretty late last night hanging with my brothers and we had an active day in the pool yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised with how wide awake I was. Mandi and I headed for the gym to do legs/shoulders and some cardio. Shoulders were same ol' same ol' with us doing the rehab routine (which Mandi says she likes) and then with legs we changed it up a bit. The LA Fitness near Mandi's house has newer equipment than the one near my house and we took advantage of that. We did various leg exercises that I had never done. Hopefully I'll be able to walk tomorrow unlike the last time I did new leg exercises.

After lifting we headed to the elliptical machines. We both did the fat burner program for 30 minutes. The program is pretty cool cause you start "running" on a flat surface with little resistance, then, out of nowhere, it feels like you're running up a sandy hill on the beach. It got my legs super fatigued and I was sweating like a mad man. Reading the US magazine from March 2008 helped pass the time though (it was the only magazine Mandi had). Towards the end I was coughing quite a bit and getting up some junk. I saved the really deep coughs for the lockeroom though so I could spit out the mucus that would come up. It's been a great start to this holiday!

Total Distance: 2.7 miles

I spent the rest of the day hanging with friends and family. Mandi and I were invited by her brother Josh and his girlfriend Christine to accompany them to the Diamondbacks game so we spent much of the afternoon there. Apparently we didn't stay long enough though. We left in the bottom of the sixth inning with the DBacks up 7-1. We thought the game was over and baseball games are incredibly long anyways. Well, come to find out, the Padres came back and ended up winning in the 10th inning 9-7. We missed quite the comeback. We did however ride the lightrail and eat at The Old Spaghetti Factory, so I have no complaints. We capped off the day by going to my aunt Mary's belated birthday party and hanging out with the fam. Great end to a great day!

Total Distance for Day: 2.7 miles

Running So Hard That I Made My Lungs Bleed

6:00am: I ask this question because last night I not only had the ceiling fan going, but also a stand up fan by the side of my bed. This morning when I woke up, I coughed up more crap than normal and it was darker in color. It was pretty thinned out, but there was A LOT of it. So it got me to thinking, was the mucus already deep down in there and the fan helped to get it out? Or is the fan some kind of irritant that somehow creates more mucus that otherwise wouldn't be there? I would love to get some feedback on this and hear if anybody else has experienced this with fans directly blowing on them while they sleep.

The walk went well and my foot is starting to feel better. It may be tough to get a run/walk in later because of my Bible study, so I may have to run or walk a little at the gym. On my walk this morning I continued to bring up quite a bit of stuff and got into a couple of coughing fits. At one point I had to stop walking because a little bit of coffee started to come up and I didn't want to lose my "cookies". For me, I have to be very conscious of walking, running, or working out on an empty stomach. The problem is, if I start coughing to much, I will lose whatever is in there. I've heard other CFers complain about the same type of thing, so I know I'm not alone.

Total Distance: 2.1 miles Time: 38'45"

3:00pm: Things have been absolutely crazy today with CFF stuff and so on so I knew I was going to have to really bust it out at the gym today. My Bible study doesn't start until 6:45pm, but because of traffic, I have to leave by 5:15pm. I know, stupid. Anyway, the gym was fantastic today and I really lifted hard and pushed myself to the max. I tried to really force myself to do more reps on every exercise than the previous week. And that is exactly what I did. I really need to start bringing a towel. There were a couple of times that I thought somebody shot me in the eye with a BB gun. I'd be sitting there doing upward rows and then all of the sudden I would have the urge to drop the bar and take the stick out of my eye that somebody so pleasantly shoved in there. Of course, I would discover after the set that it was only sweat, but nonetheless, it hurt.

I also knew that I would need to get my run/walk in at the gym because there wouldn't be time for it tonight. I started off walking .24 miles just to warm up. I then kicked it into high gear. I was determined to break my own personal treadmill record of .6 miles straight today. I was at .63 (.42 straight) when I let out a loud and deep cough. So much so that the dude next to me jerked his head around like I had just fired a gun. He would have been really shocked if he would have seen what came up with that cough. Yeah, you guessed it, blood. Good ol' B-L-O-O-D, blood. Now, it wasn't pure blood and was definitely streaked in with my mucus, but I thought it would be a good idea to back down a bit. I slowed down the treadmill to a walking pace and walked another .17. That put me at .8 total miles. Well, that wasn't good enough for me. I said that I would break my own record, which of course didn't happen, but told myself there was no reason to not run the full .6+. I sped the treadmill past the speed I was running at before and did another .2 miles followed by .1 of walking. Did you follow? Basically, I didn't break my record, but I ran a total of .62 miles and walked a total of .48. Stupid blood.

Total Distance: 1.1 miles

Total Distance Run/Walked for Day: 3.2 miles