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I had another birthday over the past few days. Another one- they just keep happening every year, as if that was a good thing. On the positive side, it was an excellent birthday, as these things go for me, but birthday or not, it would have been an awesome couple of days. The worst part of this birthday (or maybe the best??) was that it followed beginning to work with a new primary care physician and lung doctor, and I didn’t like a bunch of what I heard. For the first time in my life, the term emphasema was used to describe what is going on in my lungs. Previously I’ve been described as chronic bronchitis, asthma, andbronchiectasis. The “E” word was pretty hard to hear. Granted, no one said, “you have Emphysema,” but he described how my lungs function- the way they trap air and fail to work completely as “like Emphysema, and that is close enough to me. This really isn’t new. I’ve had doctors telling me that I trap air since I was 14.

The lung doctor gave me the worst of it. As he looked at the results of my pulmanary function studies, he said, “I can’t believe you are doing as well as you are with numbers this bad,” or something along those lines. Truly, this is a case of the glass half full or half empty, and the fact that we tend to hear things in a way different from what was actually being said. After really struggling for about a week with being depressed, I then had a followup with my PCP, and he framed it all much differently. For whatever reason, I left his office feeling like, while I can’t change the way my lungs are working, I’ll be damned if I am going to let them stop me from having the most active life possible.

I’m not one of those gays who age gracefully. I have hated getting older. Hated it! If I could stay about 35 forever, I certainly would, but as we all know, age isn’t something we have much control over. We are all getting older, and at the very same rate. That said, how we handle our age, and display it is a different matter. Ten years ago  fr my birthday, Brad took me to the Mall to buy skin care products, and my addiction to moisturizers began. Often people think I look 5- 10 years younger than I am, so as addictions go, it is a pretty good one to have. but up until this year, most of my focus on getting older has been about the affects of age on the outside of my body. Now, that is shifting, and I’m more aware of the ways that getting older is impacting me inside as well as outside. Aside from plastic surgery, there isn’t much more I can do about the outside, but it is time I make sure I’m working on the inside!

Part of why the lung doctor scared me so- he asked me if anyone had ever mentioned Pulmonary Hypertension in describing my condition. After he stepped out f the room, I googled it on my iPhone and was pretty horrified about what I read. Upon his return, I asked him, and he said he didn’t think I had it at all, but it was a condition to watch out for. At that moment, I decided I needed to work harder to make sure I was caring for my heart and lung health as much as possible.

Earlier this summer, I suggested to Brad that we ride our bikes. I bought my bike about 11 years ago, but it has sat, pretty much unused for at least the last 8 years. Brad bought a bike while we were separated, but it hasn’t really seen much action either for the past few years. But we took the bikes up to Highland Park and rode a bit and then they have sat for most of the summer. My original intention was more for Brad than for me, but that is all changed. We both need to get and stay in shape, and we both enjoy being on our bikes and so it is our newest obsession.

The evening after seeing the PCP, we decided to go riding on the South Side and rode 5 or 6 miles. I never would have thought I could have done that, but it went easily. So the next day, we went and rode on the Montour trail for 8.25 miles. Yesterday, as part of my birthday weekend, we went to Ohiopyle and rode 12.4 miles, and given how nice it is out today, we may just decide to go riding today as well.

We have set a goal. It sounds huge, but the goal is to ride Pittsburgh to DC on a 5 day bike trip in early May 2010.  No, that doesn’t sound huge, it sounds unbelievable, but we have almost 6 months to train, so we are going to see what we can make happen.  I refuse to feel old, and I refuse to just sit around worrying that my lungs will get worse. While this, as a topic, may not fit all that well into the rest of my blog, I’m going to blog about my training and biking experiences here anyway, under a new category called “BikeBlog.” For my readers who are more into the political stuff, they can ignore these posts if they want to, and who knows if there is a new audience I’l reach with these posts.

http://www.bronchiectasis.info/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphysema