So I'm up and jittery from taking enough albuterol to open up the lungs and stop coughing 'em up. I hate how this always happens to me the night before an early morning. Never the night before I can sleep in. Alas, I digress... Murphy's Law of Asthma, I suppose. So for the record my lungs apparently really do not approve of me going outside in the thunder and rain with a high level mold count. I did get to whip out my JedInhaler at Six Flags which was pretty epic. I got some strange looks. I'm not sure if that was because of the spacer or the stickers on the inhaler. My friend and I went to see Jeremy Camp's concert. Which was epic, he really rocks it out for Jesus. (Picture to follow on my 365 once my hands stop shaking enough to connect all the connections needed to upload pics :P ).
On another random note, a friend wants me to do a fundraiser walk for depression with her. It's 5k, I feel fairly confident in my ability to do the walk. Other than the fact that I've pretty well been not up to working out for the last like 2 weeks. If I'm going to do this I do need to start getting up off my buns and working out a bit in the next few weeks (It's on the 14th of August). One thing I learned from the 5k run I did was that I need to inquire about the balloon usage at the walk. if it's like 2 in an open air area of the thing I can deal with it (ie don't stand down wind of them) but if they are gonna be all over then it's a no go.
Anyway I should stop rambling and attempt to sleep. Hopefully this is coherent if not blame the 4 puffs of albuterol currently charging their way through my system.

So I'm hormonal, which normally turns me into a mess asthma control wise. I pretty much spend the whole week waking up half way through the night taking some puffs of ventolin and sleeping til about 20-60 min before my morning symbicort dose is due. Then I spend most of the rest of the day with the ventolin every four hours (you could set a clock w/ my lungs). So this month I got my symbicort dose up as a trial, which has helped immensely. However, I was tired of being home this evening. So I decided a bike ride was in order. It was about 95F/35C outside, humid as all get out, still this warm at 6:45pm. I put on my technical top and bike shorts and headed out. I did pass go I did not collect two puffs of Ventolin into the lungs. Had a pleasant bike ride, went about 6.5 miles round trip. Along a small river tributary by my house that has a paved trail next to it. This also happens to be next to a road and I have to bike on the road for part of it(can you smell the exhaust??). When I got home I again passed go and did not collect 2 puffs of albuterol.
For those of you unfamiliar with the rules of AsthmaLand, this violates pretty many of them.  Which is why I'm now recovering from super tight chest and weird double dip peak flow phenomenon. It went down came up and went back down but now it's back up after evening symbicort dose. Oh my crazy lungs. To sum it up: hormones-bad, mugginess-bad, skipping pre/post medication-bad, symbicort-good.
This post topic will undoubtedly be an on going series as I misbehave on occasion and don't do what I should to keep the lungs happy.

The bathroom was also transformed into a Lilipad with samples from OB/Stayfree/Carefree and festive decorations. 
Note: This post was written on Saturday but it took me a while to get the photos together for it. 

Okay, so you probably haven't heard that Eiffel 65 song in like 10 years. And no I'm not desatting and actually blue. I'm just seeing a lot of my (blue) ventolin in the last 3-4 days. I've been super tight like somebody is taking a vice grip around my lungs and squeezing. Two puffs of ventolin and it's good for 4-6 hours. We aren't in full blown flare mode by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just tight and short of breath. The nasty gross cough has not shown up yet. I also have not taking on exclusive mouth breathing. On the upside the allergist will get a chance to see myself in semi-wheezy mode. I can also mention to him the whole flare while on the rag thing and the fact that I've made it through an entire rescue inhaler since June.  Hopefully he will find a better cocktail for me than the current symbicort/allegra regime which keeps me not miserable but could certainly be improved.
I'm also currently considering getting myself a digital peak flow meter because a) I'm a nerd. b) it would be smaller c) FEV1 might be interesting to track. I'm thinking a microlife digital meter because it seems to have better reviews in general and I got a more definitive response from them about the latex content. I definitely love my truzone meter and it has served me faithfully I'm just horrible about using it on the go when I feel SOB. Which is weird since I have no problems with using my spacer+inhaler in public. I guess I'm a little self conscious about the noise it makes. Although I did use it tonight on the train because I just couldn't for the life of me tell if I was getting tight or if my bra was just doing something wierd. For the record I was getting tight (450, 75%). I have more musings on my asthma gear and such but I shall save those for another day. Adieu

So today was the big day for me. Weatherwise it was a pretty nice day, only 50-60% humidity and starting temperature around 75(23C) and up to 79(26C) by the time I crossed the finish line. On the downside air quality was kinda yucky today (ie Yellow).
I packed pretty light for the run. My pack included my keys, ventolin, aerochamber, epipen, grape chewable bendryl, bag-o-wallet(ziplock with the essentials from my wallet), cell phone(not pictured... taking picture) and peak flow meter.
The race started off pretty well, I ran-ish a 12:24 first mile a little before the mile marker there was a turtle crossing the trail. It was too cute and a nice reminder that slow and steady still finishes the race. I was still going strong pretty well into mile two which I finished at 26:17. Not too shabby if I do say so myself :). It was a really pretty course along the Missouri River using the Katy Trail as the main running surface. It was nice to just run in nature and not tune it out with the sounds of my music. The last 1/3 of the race proved to be a bit more challenging for me. My legs started to cramp up and I got a little SOB not much considering. Mostly I was just worn out as it was starting to warm up for the day and the second half wasn't as shady as the first half of the course. I managed to power through the last 1/3 of a mile or so and finish strong.
I crossed the finish line at 40:55 according to the official timing(38 of 47 for Age Bracket, 207 of 243 overall). This was about 4 minutes faster than my goal. All in all I'm really proud of myself for running about 3/4 of the race and finishing faster than my goal. I'll keep on training and going. However, this really helps me push past the mental block of well I have asthma so there is no way I'll ever be able to do that. I really want to find an 'I have asthma, what's your excuse?' technical tee that I can wear while running. It would be pretty sweet considering all the whining the girls ahead of me were doing. I paced behind them so I wouldn't push too hard too soon.
I'm feeling pretty good considering. I did take two hits off the ventolin after the race and will probably hit it up again tonight as I'm starting to feel a little SOB/tight(could just be hormones). I probably shouldn't have gone running on a yellow day outside. We'll see how much I pay for it afterwards. I appologize for the lack of photographic quality in the pictures. I took them myself with my cell so not the best set up(nobody came to cheer me on).

So this is me PRE-evening symbicort. I don't know how in the heck I managed to hit 620(103%) but I did many times(I repeated because I couldn't believe it). The humidity has been around 85-100% all day so my lungs have not been happy campers. As a fluke one time I hit 730 or so when I was trying out my peak flows. I'm not sure why I'm so completely green without any ventolin in like 10ish hours but I'm not going to complain. Hopefully this nice little green thing will last through til saturday afternoon. Past that it doesn't really matter since I don't have anything especially strenuous planned. Actually it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they did act up a bit next week since I'm due to see the allergist and he could see the crazy stuff they try to pull on me.

Well the big day is almost finally here. In exactly 6 days I'll be hearing the starting gun go off. I'm hoping I'm ready to run the 5k. My lungs and their shenanigans have put me about 3 weeks behind schedule on the couch to 5k program. At this point I'm still determined to do the 5k it will be a good motivator for me even if I do end up walking for some of it. I haven't really made it longer than about 3.5k yet on a run which kind of worries me if I'm going to be ready for that last 1.5k. I'm also trying to start preparing the mental check list of everything I need to get ready and carry for the run and plotting how to carry it all. All and all I'm just hoping that my hormones will behave so that the lungs will follow suit. I'm guessing at this point I'll probably do some kind of run so many minutes followed by a minute or two walk. I'm hoping to finish under 50 minutes but honestly just crossing the finish line will make me pretty happy. I'm not looking to break any records especially considering that there is a good chance of rain and/or hot temperatures. If all goes well I'll keep up the training and hopefully run another 5k in the fall up at school (a little faster or all running or perhaps both next time :P).

So I didn't really get any pictures but I was at Six Flags for the majority of the day. It was a nice 80ish(28ishC) degree day so my lungs behaved for me for the most part. I did take two hits of ventolin before we hit the water park just to be sure that I didn't have trouble in the pool where I'd be far from the inhaler. May or may not have needed to premedicate for that one. I mean in all honesty I should have premedicated for the entire adventure multiple times. You see not only was I wandering the park like all the rest of my fellow roller coaster junkies I also was pushing my best friend. She uses a wheelchair and the terrain is uneven and hilly enough that I have to help push her around most of the time. I don't feel like I missed out by skipping my running workout today at all.
I was really super excited that I didn't need my inhaler at all today other than a little preventive premedication. Of course as I say this my lungs are starting to twitch... maybe there should be some post medication??Can you post medicate for something when you were running around doing it for 8ish hours? Is that legal in AsthmaLand(I think I've just invented a new universe that runs parallel to the normal people universe :P) or does that just count as rescue inhaler use. These are the questions that plague my life. Alas I digress in search of my spacer and ventolin.