Mile 1467. I can't breathe!

My mom answers the phone with her always-chipper voice, “How’s my favorite mountain climber doing today?”

I wish I could banter back, as I normally do.   Instead, I dive in;  

“Mo… “  I say, between dramatically violent coughing spasms.   “I ca… bre…”

I gasp for air.  But any attempt to expand my lungs triggers more coughing - coughing so violent that I hit my head on the table as I dry heave.  I’m choking. 

And I’m scared.

Even at 53 years old, I need my mom. 

Defeated tears stream down my face.   I try to be strong.   I try to be brave.   I try to make smart decisions for my health and my body.

But right now, it’s time to hold up the white flag. 

I need help.  

***

At 5 years old, I was admitted to the hospital for a severe asthma exacerbation.   I struggled with the disease throughout my childhood.   But I eventually grew out of it; and I happily categorized these years as a distant memory.

Until IRONMAN.   While moving out to Colorado to train at altitude catapulted my athletic career, it also awakened the asthma beast within me.   Every training session was an oxygen-deprived sufferfest.   With the help of a new team of doctors, I persevered; and I got the work done.

As soon as I retired from IRONMAN, my asthma disappeared.   Once again, I happily categorized my disease as a distant memory; and I victoriously destroyed all my asthma medication.

Here I am again, though.  Oxygen-deprived sufferfest part three.  The Appalachian Trail edition. 

I first noticed my deep, deep fatigue in northern Pennsylvania.   The skippity spring in my legs was replaced with an iron anvil.   Rock hops, once a childlike play, became a prison sentence.   And attempts to replenish with a mountainside view were thwarted by a subtle Canadian-fire haze.

By New Jersey, the fatigue turned into bronchitis.   And the bronchitis lingered with a cough. Occasional, at first.   But my cough grew with increasing frequency, and then with increasing intensity.   No amount of cough drops or vaporub could help. 

By New York, my sleep neighbors regularly commented in the morning.  I’m now *that* person who keeps everyone else awake at night.

Yet I persevere.   Because that’s what I do.   I persevere, until I can’t.

 ***

The nurse breaks the news as I sit across from her at the CVS Minute Clinic.  Air is moving through my lungs at less than 50% of peak flow.   I am having a severe asthma exacerbation.  Next time this happens, I should go directly to the emergency room.

Tears well up.  My body is letting me down.  But I want to be strong. I like being strong.   It’s who I am.

The nurse gives me a nebulizer breathing treatment; and we discuss medication strategy and if-then scenario planning.   (And, later that same day, I validate the strategy and plan with a doctor friend of the family.)

***

I leave CVS with a full pound of medication to add to my pack weight, and with ten pages of instructions to add complexity to my already-complex hiking routine.

As I get into the car, my shuttle driver asks, “So where are we going?”

“To the trail,” I answer.   I have some persevering to do.