Hospital and pursed lips.

After managing to survive my hectic week with astonishing poise and style, my lungs then decided that they had been big and brave a bit too much recently, and at the slightest hint of humid and muggy weather, promptly threw in the towel and had a big strop. This resulted me being carted into hospital on Thursday, as I couldn't really do much except lie down and puff at people, so came in for some rest, Intravenous (IV) Antibiotics, and general TLC. Struggling to breathe even when my O2 mask was on, and I was lying still wasn't a particularly nice feeling so I was relieved to be admitted.

In an almost apologetic manner my little lungs have made a remarkably swift recovery, and I am almost well enough to continue the IV treatment at home (yay!). Obviously training has gone completely to pot, however I take full advantage of the physios when I am in, and request twice daily visits, and go for walks with them as often as they will take me (not sure whether that makes me a model patient or an annoying one!). So I have been doing daily walks, twice daily when I can, just up and down the corridor, at first about 20 ft then sitting down to catch my breath, and gradually building it up from there. My physio taught me a fantastic technique yesterday where you purse your lips as you breathe out whilst walking, it cuts down on the air trapping which my lungs are renound for and in turn increases the length of time before I am completely out of puff. The only drawback (for me) is that I can no longer talk when walking. Not that I am supposed to anyway, as the physio always tells me off for doing so, probably to give her ears a break more than anything else!

I think the most frustrating thing about these exacurbations in relation to training is that you go back to square one, and have to build up from the bottom - where the out of breath stage is merely putting on the shoes to go walking - all over again. However I am already moving forwards again, and hey, no one ever said this was going to be easy...wouldn't be called a challenge really then would it?!

A hectic week!

Last week was one of the busiest weeks in the history of mankind - well it was for me anyway! I managed to do so much I really cant believe how well my tiny lungs behaved, and I am incredibly proud of them.

I have been into london, bollywood danced, eaten large meals, been to a night club (first ever time since starting to use oxygen a year ago!) been on a minibreak, to the theatre and to my sisters 16th! I reckon that's enough to make anyone need a week in bed!

In between each activity I put my mask on and went straight to sleep, which is one of the reasons I think I was able to participate in so much, so needless to say there was no training done. However I thought I would post a pic or two of my exploits to show that really I have been doing a great deal of exercise which probably counteracts the lack of actual training!

As for news on the challenge itself, we now have a team of over 60 Angels and have now passed the £2000 mark which is just fantastic! But even more exciting for me than that (sadly) is the fact that I found an adult sized bright pink fairydress which I immediately purchased because let's face it, it isnt every day you see one of those for sale. So I will be donned in a floaty dress with fushia netting and sequins....come on September!!

Pic 1 - supposed to be bollywood dancing but I appear to be laughing more than anything...

Pic 2 - climbing a large rock, before we noticed the sign that said "do not climb on the rocks". Oops. Excuse technological incompitence which is why I appear to be lying sideways as I cannot work out how to turn the photo round!