Some Days You Feel Like a Troll with Hemoptysis

I felt like a troll with hemoptysis yesterday during my run – big, thick legs and all. My third day running can be described with one word: brutal. That, however makes for a very short and very lame update for a subject matter expert, so I best elaborate with my language skills exactly what that word consisted of yesterday.

To bring you back up to speed, Beautiful and I both ran Tuesday and Thursday last week, but due to the physical strain on our unprepared bodies there was going to be none of that over the weekend, so we opted to heal and start fresh on Tuesday this week. Then Tuesday was still not a good day. I don’t mean “not good” as in “lazy” or “unwilling,” but precisely as in knowing that if I ran, my body would reject any sort of physical activity for a few more days and that I’d risk getting sick over an effort to get healthier.

Thursday rolled around and Beautiful was just plain wiped from work and it had been raining for hours. I decided it was a day to determine whether or not I am serious about training for the 5K in February or not, so I went out alone (big news about the 5K coming with my next post).

Run I did. Hemoptysis I had.

I haven’t had any hemoptysis since late March, so I was not happy about this turn at all! Here’s what happened: I did my opening 5-minute walk pretty briskly and got a tad further than we did on Tuesday, but the same as Thursday before I started my running. This time, I concentrated on keeping a pace that I would actually do in a 5K situation, which ended up clocking at 5.6mph, which would give me an amazing 33:22 time if I kept that pace up the whole time. I’d be more than happy with that time, and that pace is really slow compared to my 400m or even my 1600m race pace.

You see, I used to run track  in Jr. High. I ran the 100, 200, 400, 400 relay, 800 relay,  1600,  1600 relay, and long jump. I will be the first to admit that, when compared to taller, stronger (and more adult bodies at the time) kids, I was not that good. I am confident, though, that I am a solid performer and learned my techniques well. I look like a pro when I run and I move along at 8-10mph at my 400m pace now and 11.5mph back then… so 5.6mph feels like I should be able to run forever.

Wrong.

I was going really strong after a minute, so I decided to dump the plan to start walking again and decided to go for two minutes. It wasn’t my lungs that wanted me to quit this time, but my knees. They were protesting after 40 seconds, and they’d had enough at 2:00 and made me dump my new plan to run a lap around that block of buildings, which I estimate to be nearly 400m. I made it about 300m after slowing considerably for the last 50-100m.

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Then the nightmare started. I coughed. I spit. It was streaky. Now, I almost expected gunk after that run because I’d probably shaken up stuff from years ago that aerosols and Vest is never going to free me of. Blood was not something I expected. Not even in the least. I coughed again as I rounded the corner. Another streak… and another. After I rounded the fourth corner, I’d seen about 5 streaks when I coughed one more time halfway down the first side again and it was pure, hot blood.

Then, no more. If it hadn’t been for the color (bright red) and consistency (very fluid, low viscosity), I would have thought it was old blood that had been stuck down there, especially given that it immediately stopped. In hindsight after the next day, I’m also perplexed by the lack of streaks the next day, as is normal with any bout of bleeding of any amount the day before. Nothing. No sign that I’d bled at all.

I discontinued my walk/run after that last cough, walked in the door very upset with myself: a failure. A failure, not because I had stopped my routine early, but because my body failed me. That is worse than giving up, because I can beat my mind into submission, but there is a certain point where you can’t beat your body into submission.

I’ve made darn sure I’ve taken every ADEK dose since then (I’d overdose on vitamin K now if the opportunity arose) and made sure I’m breathing really deep during my neb treatments to get all the way down there where my lungs are having air reach for the first time in years.

Saturday will definitely see me pounding the pavement again, unless the weather pushes it to Sunday. There will be no blood. I repeat, there will be no blood.