What a Whirlwind

B and I moved into a brand new house that we've spent the past 5-months witnessing its construction. Its been stressful, its been fun and its thrilling to call it ours.

All the anticipation of moving into a beautiful new home has come and gone. We're starting to settle in and get back into a normal routine. During the great packing expedition I sort of lost my routine and felt off track for most of the last 2 months. I was keeping up on my treatments but my exercising was more sporadic than routine. Plus all the moving is down right physically exhausting, at least for me!

This week, though, I feel I'm gaining ground on rebuilding my routine. We're living in a new town which creates new opportunities for exploring new running routes. Since the home is new we still have a few finishing touches, like building a fence for our backyard. Until that is accomplished I have to walk the dogs a couple of times a day, which is as good for me as it is them.

This weekend is the MTJME 5K. I'm excited to run around my new little town for such a great cause. Then I'm only 4 weeks away from running my first Half-Marathon. I'm nervous that this move has greatly impacted my training but I'm still gonna make the attempt and if walking is what takes me over the finish line, then I'll take it.

I'm eager to leave the whirlwind behind and settle into life in the new place.

~Doodlin'

So Much Time A-wasting

Being that I've been running, errr.... attempting to be a runner for almost 2.5 years now. I've grown accustom to using a stop watch or some sort of clock to track my time. After-all tracking one's time when running is important. It gives you a lot of information about your workout or run. Things like average mile per hour should begin to improve the more fit you become. Anyways, you get the point, time is a good measurement or benchmark and can lend you a lot of information.

The amount of time we CF'ers spend doing treatments is huge. Particularly when you start to calculate it over the average life span of a CF'er. We're talking months and even years. Its crazy.

A CF'er gave a speech then turned it into a blog post about this very subject: Time. It's worth the read. 

Run, Sickboy, Run - Cystic Fibrosis and Exercise: We Need More Options!!

"Any treatment that I can take that isn’t a huge burden on my time really excites me. Any potential treatment option that I can take that can potentially “give me time back” excites me even more."

The main point (from my perspective) is that we, the CF patients, need more options that not only improve quality of life but aren't time consuming. Most who haven't been around a CF'er during treatment probably can't even begin to comprehend just how much time is used up on treatments. We (CF'ers) for the most part are willing to give up precious time for a better quality of life. In his post, he demonstrated just how much time his treatments take him by using a stop watch.

How have I never thought to do this simple experiment? I'm inspired to do it now! I'm sure his treatment times won't be too far off what my will end up being but you never know. His regime might be less extensive as mine or vice versa.

The other factor is that when we're sick (haha!), I mean when our symptoms are exacerbated the amount of time doing treatments greatly increases. With out doing the time experiment I would estimate double the amount of time.

Phew! That's a just crazy. No wonder I'm always on the look-out for new activities to do while doing treatments. I get bored. I need stimulation during those times to keep me from focusing on how long I've sat in one place puffing away on a nebulizer. I like to be busy and this stagnate time frustrates me. I think of all the things I could be doing or that need doing, yet I sit on my tush puffing away. 

I think we're still a good many years away from life without treatments. We're making amazingly fast progress but anyone who has CF more than likely has conceeded that this time is just par for the course. 

Anyone have any good ideas for activities that are not apart of the obvious like reading, tv, etc?

~Doodlin'