Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, and New York. These are the World Marathon Majors, and my commitment to San Francisco means I won’t be a part of them this year. No big deal, though–I’ll save Boston for my second marathon (assuming there is one!). Continue reading
All I can say about this group of guys who ran across the Sahara desert is wow. WOW. I mean, four thousand miles — in some of the worst weather conditions you can imagine! It makes a regular ol’ marathon in a regular ol’ US City look like nothing! Continue reading
Wow, I wish I had heard about Cause to Run earlier! It’s a great way to raise money for charity while running the San Francisco Marathon. I knew there were a lot of marathons out there for cancer and other causes, but I didn’t know the San Francisco Marathon had a program like this. Continue reading
Yowza! My marathon plan has been going fine so far, but this week thie mileage is upped a bit–just by a mile or two each day, but it’s making a difference. I can definitely feel it in my legs!
Continue reading
I previously wrote about thinking a higher power may be at work, helping me to remain commited to my resolution and I promised to share a story I came across at about.com. This is the story of Christine Rowley, a Guide for many years at about.com’s Smoking Cessation Pages. She has been good enough to share her experience with emphysema and why we don’t want to deal with it in our lives. Although her story is sprinkled with humor, there is nothing funny about her story. If you are sitting on the fence about your decision to quit, I hope this will help you take the first step.
When someone in the family trips over your trailing 50 foot air hose in the family room, you know it, even though you are in the computer room, the kitchen, the bedroom, or the bathroom. If you have a lot of slack, you might not feel it. If there’s little or no slack, you feel a sharp yank on your ears, like someone trying to pull them both off at once! Your other scare is that someone has not only tripped, but may have lost their balance and may have fallen!
NEW LIFESTYLE
What’s it like to live with oxygen in a nose hose 24/7 for the first year? From what I’ve learned and have been told by others with COPD, that was the beginning of what could be years of living this way.
Your life takes on a whole new direction when you are told you have emphysema. At this point you find that you have quit smoking too late. It has been creeping up on you for years. You’ve been coughing your “smoker’s cough” around the clock without giving it a second thought, or kept your head in the sand and tried to ignore that chronic bronchitis which led to the emphysema.
BRAIN FOG AND EXHAUSTION
Although I’d been told I had emphysema (COPD) four years previously, I was shocked when my doctor only just now prescribed around-the-clock oxygen for me. That happened because I’d tried to rake some leaves in my back yard. I couldn’t believe how quickly I ran out of steam and could not catch my breath! Plus, I was in what I called a “brain fog” a lot more these days, so my doctor discovered my body’s oxygen level was operating on only 74%, where normally 90% + is acceptable. So, it was oxygen tank time for me.
MY NEW LEASH ON LIFE
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be “on a leash”, you’ll wonder no longer as your try to adapt to your new lack of freedom. Wherever you go, there it is. You’ll learn to dress without the “nose hose” on after you’ve found out what happens when you get dressed and find the hose now runs down the inside of your pants, making it difficult to navigate. For us women, you haven’t lived until you’ve trapped the hose on the inside of your bra and not noticed until you tried to leave the room.
Some “leashes” take a curious delight in becoming entrapped when you close the door on your two door style refrigerator, thereby forcing you to open the door once again to duck to get the looping hose out. Mine does this 97% of the time whenever I open the fridge door. Trust me, this is NOT a good way to stay on a diet!
NOSE HOSES AND EAR LIFTS
Opening a hot oven becomes an exercise in juggling hot racks, hot food, and keeping your cool oxygen hose off the hot surface! This can be done by tucking the hose between your knees. When you get up from the table, or from any sitting position, be sure you are NOT standing on your hose. Your ears will feel like they’re going into outer space if you don’t get off it quickly! If your ears are close to your head “before nose hose”, you may notice them beginning to flare outward if you step on the hose too much. A bold new style of makeover!
SNAGS
You will soon learn to hold your nose hose with one hand while gallivanting through the house. If you don’t, you will experience many backward head jerks due to the hose getting caught around corners, in the corner of appliances (yes, the refrigerator comes to mind again), and under door jambs. The rocking chair is superb at reaching out and snagging it often, and woe is you if one hand has a plate with a sandwich on it, and the other hand has a glass of milk! You have no way of getting free of the snag unless you put something down and yank it out from under the rocker. Passing mates are really handy right about then too.
TANGLES
The tubing (which looks like aquarium air line) can become kinked and tangled after a day of going back and forth and can actually become kinked to the point of nearly shutting off your air. Where you were at 2 liters before, you are now down to below one. Now you’ll need to find the kink and un-kink it. As you do, you’ll see the level on your concentrator return to 2. You’ll need to check your concentrator as you go by to be sure you are getting the air you need. The concentrator machine is a bit noisy, so you might want to keep it away from your living room and sleeping areas.
When sleeping, you never know if you are going to wake up with your nose hose still in your nose, or if it’s to be found atop your head where you pushed it in the night while asleep, or it may be lost on the floor.
Aghast, you wonder if you got enough oxygen during the night. You must also remember to take your medicine, including any inhaler prescriptions nightly.
THE PET THING
If you have dogs or other pets at home, they will react to it in different ways. One of mine hates the hose and avoids it like the plague. It’s taken him a year to even accept it. The other seems to think it links us together like Siamese twins, and she sits or lays on it every chance she gets. She’s responsible for some of my ear tugs, let me tell you! Cats, as you know, love to chase moving “strings”. Keep her nails trimmed.
OXYGEN LEVELS
Power failures are worse for you than your computer dying from power failure. If the power goes off, you need to plug into your bottle oxygen, which only lasts a short time, so it’s a good idea to have at least 4 filled bottles around continuously. Vacations are planned around your oxygen provider’s nationwide or worldwide reach and availability of oxygen wherever you go and when you need it. Trips into town or to the grocery store have to be planned by how much oxygen is in the tank you are taking with you. If it’s not enough, you will have to change the tank, removing the regulator and putting it on a full tank before going shopping.
STARING MATCHES
Once outside either with your large tank with the wheels, or with the portable unit, you cannot elude the stares of both children and adults. The worst are the smokers whose minds you can just about read by the way they look at you in horror. “I wonder if that could possibly happen to me? Nahhhh! I’m not old enough yet!” they think. Well, I used to think the very same way! When you have an oxygen tank, you no longer have an “invisible” disease. It is all too visible to the whole world. And it becomes scary. Almost all emphysema is cause by smoking, did you know that?
PREVENTABLE, BUT NON-REVERSIBLE
Emphysema is not a reversible disease because of the manner in which the lung is damaged. You lose more and more elasticity within the lungs as time goes on, and it becomes harder to breathe. You can avoid getting emphysema by quitting smoking just as soon as possible. “Now” would be best. The other option is to never start smoking. Believe me, smoking is not worth going through this in any way, and I wish I had never started smoking as a teen. Guess I should have listened to my Dad, right?
GRATITUDE
The good thing about having this oxygen 24/7 is that my gratitude has grown because my life has been extended for a time by having oxygen to help my body operate as well as it can. Without it, who knows how short the time would be. I hope that my life will be extended long enough for a miracle to happen; medical or otherwise. Truly, I pray a smoking-related disease NEVER ever happens to you.
Sadly, Christine has passed away. I hope her story will inspire you to quit before it is too late. It has inspired me to stick with my plan. Thank you for sharing, Christine, and may you rest with the angels.
Well, here I am three weeks into my resolution to quit smoking! I wish I could say that it has been easy, but I would be lying to you. It’s still very hard for me, but I have smoked for probably 45 years and I can almost liken this to losing a friend. Cigarettes have been my companion for all that time, helping me through stressful situations, even making me feel socially more secure! So, I didn’t really expect it would be easy.
I find that I have to keep reinforcing and reinforcing my commitment to stay strong. I had a routine doctor’s visit yesterday and shared the news with my doctor. Boy, did she make me feel good! She was high-fiving me and told me how proud she was of me, it was great motivation to continue. I almost feel like I have an obligation now not to let the people in my life be disappointed! Hey, I will take motivation wherever I can find it. 
I’ve rediscovered an old love of mine - jigsaw puzzles! I kind of get obsessed with them so it really helps me not to miss a cigarette so much. Once I start them, I have a hard time pulling myself away from them, so it keeps my hands occupied doing something I really enjoy and I don’t feel the need to run outside for a cigarette because I can’t pull myself away from the puzzle, ha ha! They are even available to do online, although I don’t get quite the same satisfaction as I do in handling the pieces to see if they fit. Some people find that knitting or crocheting serves the same purpose - I am not that domesticated. Whatever floats your boat!
I don’t know how many of you out there who are reading this are spiritual, but I do feel like there is something greater than me at work in this. It seems like whenever I feel like I don’t want to do this anymore, something comes along to steel my determination again. As I mentioned before, my granddaughter was a big inspiration for me to do this. She and I have been passing the same cough/cold between us for about 3 months now. First, she was diagnosed with ashtma - then when the nebulizer didn’t seem to be of particular help, she developed pneumonia. So, we are both on antibiotics now, trying to get rid of this for good this time. Thank God she is on the mend now, but it certainly powered me on to stick with my goal.
Then, I came across one woman’s experience with emphysema. I really want to share that story with anyone out there who is still trying to make up their minds about quitting. I will post it in a separate post when I have more time to type it all up…there is a jigsaw puzzle with my name on it!
A time comes in our life when we finally get it. When, in the midst of all of our fears and insanity, we stop dead in our tracks and somehwhere the voice inside our head cries out - ENOUGH!
Enough fighting and crying and struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, our sobs begin to subside, we shudder once or twice, we blink back our tears, and through a mantle of wet lashes we begin to look at the world through new eyes.
This is our awakening. We realize that it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. We come to terms with the fact that he/she is not Prince Charming or Cinderella, and we are not Cinderella or Prince Charming.
We awaken to the fact that we are not perfect, that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what we are, and that’s okay. (They’re entitled to their own views and opinions.) And we learn the importance of loving and championing ourselves; and in the process a sense of newfound confidence is born of self-approval. We stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to us (or didn’t do for us) and we learn that the only thing we can really count on is God (the supernatural power of the universe).
We learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say, and sometimes they don’t even know themselves.
We also learn that not everyone will always be there for us; and that it’s not always about us. So, we learn to stand on our own, and to take care of ourselves, and in the process, a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.
We stop judging and pointing fingers and we begin to accept people as they are, and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailities, and in the process, a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.
We realize that much of the way we view ourselves and the world around us is as a result of all the messages and opinions that have been ingrained into out psyche.
We begin to sift through all that we’ve been fed about how we should behave and how we should look and how much we should weigh; what we should wear and where we should shop, and what we drive; how and where we should live and what we should do for a living; who we should sleep with, who we should marry and what we should expect of a marriage; the importance of having and raising children, or what we owe our parents.
We learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. And we begin reassessing and redefining who we are and what we really stand for.
We learn that it is truly in giving that we receive. And that there is power and glory in creating and contributing; and we stop maneuvering through life merely as a “consumer” looking for our next fix.
We learn the principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which we must build a life.
We learn that we don’t know everything, it’s not our job to save the world and that we can’t teach a cat to sing.
We learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries, and learning to say NO.
We learn that the only cross to bear is the one we choose to carry, and that martyrs get burned at the stake.
Then we learn about love; romantic love and the familial love.
How to love, how much to give in love, when to stop giving, and when to walk away.
We learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as we would have them be. We stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. We learn that, just as people grow and change, so it is with love, and we learn that we don’t have the right to demand love on our terms just to make us happy.
We also learn that to build a long term relationship, it takes two people to work on it.
Love is the most important material needed; forgiveness and acceptance are needed to cement the relationship.
If one person backs out, the other can’t do it on his/her own.
And we learn that alone does not mean lonely. And we look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that we will never be a perfect size, and we stop trying to compete with the image inside our head and agonizing over how we “stack up”.
We also stop working so hard at putting our feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring our needs. We learn that feelings of entitlement are perfectly OK. And that it is our right to want things and to ask for the things that we want and that sometimes it is necessary to make demands.
We come to the realization that we deserve to be treated with love, kindness, sensitivity and respect, and we don’t settle for less.
And, we allow only the hands of a lover who cherishes us to glorify us with his/her touch and in the process, we internalize the meaning of self-respect.
And we learn that our body really is our temple, and we begin to care for it and treat it with respect. We begin eating a balanced diet, drink more water, take time to exercise and stop smoking.
We learn that fatigue diminishes the spirit and can create doubt and fear. So, we take more time to rest.
And just as food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul, and crying cleans our hurts. Suppressing our hurt makes us weak. It’s okay to cry - it’s a form of releasing our hurt; after we feel the fullness of our hurt, we will grow strong again.
So, we take more time to laugh and to play. We learn that, for the most part, in life we get what we believe we deserve and that much of life truly is a self fulfilling prophecy.
We learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for, and that wishing for something to happen is different from working towards making it happen. More importantly, we learn that in order to achieve success, we need direction, discipline and perseverence.
We also learn that no on can do it all alone and that it’s okay to risk asking for help. We learn that the only thing we must truly fear is the great robber baron of all time, fear itself.
We learn to step right into and through our fears because we know that whatever happens we can handle it, and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on our terms.
And we learn to fight for our life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom. We learn that life isn’t always fair, we don’t always get what we think we deserve and that sometimes, bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people. On these occasions, we learn not to personalize things.
We learn that God isn’t punishing us or failing to answer our prayers.
We begin to take responsibility for our actions. And we learn to deal with evil in the most priimal state - the ego.
We learn negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of us and poison the universe that surrounds us.
We learn to admit when we are wrong and to building bridges instead of walls.
We learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted - things that millions of people upon this earth can only dream about - a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower. Slowly, we begin to take responsibility for ourselves by ourselves and we make ourselves a promise to never betray ourselves and to never settle for less than our heart’s desire.
And we hang a wind chime outside our window so we can listen to the wind. And we make it a point to keep smiling, keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.
Finally, with courage in our heart and with Spirit by our side, we take a stand; we take a deep breath, and we begin the life that we want to live as best we can.
Author Unknown
I’ve been thinking about trying rock climbing for a while now, and this article about Dean Potter particularly piqued my interest. This guy is an amazing athlete who, with his partner Tim O’Neill, climbed the Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite in 3 hours and 24 minutes (the first ascent up the Nose took 45 DAYS!). Continue reading
If you are planning to stop smoking, this article may give you something to think about.
According to The British Medical Journal, University College London researchers performed a survey in which it was found that two-thirds of smokers who stopped suddenly succeeded for at least six months, compared to under half of those who planned it in detail. The study suggested that planners possibly felt less strongly about giving up.
The theory is based upon the idea that, prior to giving up, smokers have varying degrees of motivational tension, which results in the decision to quit.
Motivation is likely to be high in those who take immediate action, but less so in those who opt to quit some time in the future.
In the study, 65% of the unplanned quit attempts had succeeded for at least six months. This compared with 45% of those who planned to quit in advance.
It has traditionally been thought that the best way to quit is for smokers to go through several stages - thinking about stopping, planning the attempt and making the attempt.
Researchers say this is not to imply that planning to quit is counterproductive.
Lead researcher Robert West said: “The results do not mean that we should tell everyone to stop without planning ahead, but they do tell us something about the state of mind of the smoker who wants to quit.”
“Dissatisfaction with being a smoker creates a kind of tension. Then, when that tension is high, even quite a small trigger makes the smoker decide that the time has come to stop. “
“If that decision is to quit some time in the future, rather than right away, then in some smokers it could indicate a weaker commitment.”
Jean King, director of tobacco control for Cancer Research UK, said: “This is an interesting survey showing that there are different strokes for different folks.”
“The new findings suggest that some people can stop on the spur of the moment and that is very good news for them.”
“Others benefit from planning a quit date.”
“In both cases people can always get additional support from Stop Smoking clinics which have helped thousands of people give up by providing nicotine replacement therapy, support counselling and a timetabled plan for smokers if that is what they need.”
So, if you want to stop smoking and you don’t have a plan, don’t be afraid to just jump right in if the spirit moves you. You may be more successful than some others! From everything I had read on the subject, I felt that I was not being serious about it if I didn’t have a plan. So, I made one! It’s been a tough two weeks for me and I don’t know if it would have been any better to have quit when I first decided to do it. I probably would have been over most of the withdrawal symptoms by now though! 
Well, at two weeks into my resolution to quit smoking, I am finding myself stressed. So, I decided to de-stress myself, occupy my hands and maybe bring a smile to my face.
This is a short list of some fun tests you can take so you can stop taking yourself so seriously. Lighten up - don’t be so hard on yourself - you’ll get through it!
THIS IS ONLY A TEST!
The Death Clock (If You Really Want To Know!)
Do You Really Know What is Gross?
And, this one is a game, but for obvious reasons, it is my favorite even though the instructions seem to be in Korean!
I hope you have some fun here.