I’ve done it: I’ve reached my limit. I can’t upload anymore photographs without either deleting some older posts, or upgrading to a more expensive plan. I cannot make a decision about that now, and maybe not tomorrow, or even the next day. We’ll know more later.

What I do know today is that I’m grateful for Birgitt, the Nurse Practitioner at Delta Health Pulmonary. She spent well over an hour with me this afternoon, listening attentively, exploring options, and explaining what might be going on and what steps to take next. I have been diagnosed with moderate COPD, without much further explanation. How did I get this? Was it from being raised in a home filled with second-hand smoke from birth til eighteen? Was it from forty years of light pot smoking? Was it from living with particulates from thirty years of woodstove heating? Was it chronic bronchitis for a few years when I lived in Florida? Who knows? Maybe we’ll know more later.

Birgitt said she prefers not to do too many tests to examine the potential causes, but to look forward to investigate potential treatments and mitigations. My paraphrase. I’m on some sample inhalers to see if that improves things, and she drew blood for a CBC, and had a cheek swab to check for a genetic type of COPD. My neck was measured for an overnight sleep test at the hospital–I didn’t even wanna ask what that was about! And referrals were sent for the sleep test, and to a different oxygen company to see if we can finally get me night oxygen. I’m grateful for her kind and deep attention, and to finally have a short answer, and another advocate committed to helping my breath improve. I know that I need to be my best advocate, and get more exercise, and step up the daily pranayama practice. Time to knuckle down and take my health seriously again.

“Get your head out of the clouds,” as my mother would have said. How she laughed when my old friend Thelma told her I had such great common sense. I’m grateful that I’ve had the common sense to avoid Covid so far, knowing intuitively and physically that my lungs can’t afford that kind of infection. I’m grateful I have supportive friends who understand this, and now that I have this diagnosis, maybe a few more of them will finally get it that I just can’t get it. I’m grateful this arduous day is over and I can go to bed and get a good night’s sleep. Wishing you a good night’s sleep as well, and happy breathing.