The ups and the downs

I've never had to deal with an ongoing injury like this lung thing. Messes with your head.

I gradually get better, start to think I'm heading out of the woods (for good this time, right?), then I overdo it and I have a little relapse. That's when it's so easy to get scared. What the fuck IS this exactly? Why do I feel better when I'm working out but sometimes the chest tightness happens several hours later? If a killer Pilates class is bad for me, wouldn't it feel bad when I'm doing it, instead of 5 hours later? And why does one Pilates class make me feel so much better (like last Thursday's mat class) and another wipe me out and get me back to feeling like someone is sitting on my chest (like last Tuesday's reformer class)? I forgot to wear my heart rate monitor on Tuesday. Is it as simple as I just did too much even though it didn't feel like it at the time?

Fuck, this is exhausting...mentally I mean. I'm so sick of being sick. And sick of being scared. Easy to think I'm taking the right course when I'm getting better. But when I have these relapses I start to wonder if there's something I'm doing that I shouldn't be doing, or something I should be doing that I'm not doing, all out of sheer ignorance. Yes. I could go see a doctor again. I think about that occasionally. But a "regular" doctor is just someone I'm going to frustrate and there's not a naturopath in the area. I won't take steroids. I won't take drugs. I won't let them do a stress test on my lungs (after all this work to keep my activity level down I'm going to jump on a treadmill so they can prove to themselves that yes, exercise shuts my lungs down? duh). I won't let them do a lung biopsy (yeah, that'll help me heal faster, cut some of it out). I'm willing to do anything non-invasive...MRI, ultrasound, etc., but those are fucking expensive tests. And once I had a definitive diagnosis (which isn't guaranteed by any means) what would it change? That would just put me back having the argument about taking drugs.

Looking back I can see that I'm getting better. Most of the time I can talk as much as I want. That was not always the case. I can go to the grocery store and Pilates classes and out to dinner. That was not always the case. So even though it's incredibly frustrating to have these little setbacks, I'm bouncing back much, much faster and my setbacks are now better than where i used to be all the time. Must keep my perspective. So I'll keep workin' the program and trying to avoid setbacks. Eat right. Pilates (but not too strenuous). Clean, humidied air. Buteyko exercises. Manage my schedule so I'm not doing too much on any particular day.

Gotta just keep my head down and work the fucking program.