Yesterday for the first time in {cough} years I got back on rollerblades. After 3+ months of physical therapy and head colds and strep throat and asthma and fuck all else it was time to get OUTSIDE AND DO SOMETHING.

The kids are skating and Husband is skating and I was the only one not skating and I decided that was NOT the equation I wanted so as soon as I was cleared by my most awesome physical therapist I went directly to the sporting goods store to buy me a pair of tiny wheelz. And gear. A helmet, too. Accessories!

So yesterday was a magnificent spring day here and right after the hour-and-a-half nap that was thrust upon me from G-d knows where I jumped up and was all, “OK, come ON! Get the skates we’re going outside!” Tiny feet scattered everywhere amongst little squees of joy and I began strapping on 900 different pads to keep everyone and myself from ending up back in physical therapy for another 3 months.

Here’s an aside that will become important in a moment. Make a note of this. Do you know that in skates you’re like 4” taller than you normally are? I felt like Godzilla in a Japanese village once I had my blades on – I might have ducked going through some doorways.

We have rule in this house and anyone who has ever lived with a toddler will understand this rule immediately. We go potty before just about every activity. I’m sure this bears no explanation. So everyone is done and ready to go and then I realize I need to go potty myself. I stand there for a second realizing I’m totally suited up skates and all but shrug my shoulders and roll myself to my bathroom where things are promptly taken care of. (You get no more details than that.)

So I’m done and ready to get up and go outside and I realize I’m…. stuck. See, those extra 4 inches? Well, they put your knees higher than your hips which gives those of us with weaked lower backs and legs a SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM because you can’t get good, uh, leverage to stand up. Like AT ALL.

Another lesson: You can’t really use the side walls of the potty room to help because you have FUCKING WHEELS ON and they will roll right the hell out from under you and that ends in crashing back down on a potty seat that really cannot take the kind of impact.

So there I sit, helmet on, pads on, pants around my blade-covered ankles… air drying more than I’d ever choose to. Upon realizing the RIDICULOUSNESS of the situation I actually started laughing out loud. Around that exact moment Leah came rolling into the bathroom all, “COME ON, Mommy!” and I had to ask her to go find Husband.

Bet you know where this is going.

“What?”

“Well, I’m stuck.”

{laughter} If he’d had a drink in his mouth he’d have spit it out in fine cinematic form.

“Okay. Hang on. Grab around my neck…”

“All right – just remember I have wheels on.”

{laughter}

“Shut up! And we shall never speak of this again.”

“No well shall not.”

I’m happy to report that blading was awesome and I could do all that I used to be able to do and OMG did I feel good to be outside exercising. Also? And this is a total WIN – I woke up NOT SORE the next day.

I should totally give my physical therapist a cupcake for that miracle.

I am living with asthma.  I haven’t had to do this until this year because at the age of 39 I developed it.  No rhyme or reason given – just one day a whole slew of foods that want to kill me and some lungs that no longer want to cooperate.

As I am learning, month by month, there are good periods where you feel back to normal and bad periods where breathing is an hourly challenge.  During one of the latest good periods I was off medication all together and thought perhaps I was home free.  I hadn’t felt that great in a long time.

Then about three weeks ago everything went sideways.  Inhaler after inhaler after inhaler coupled with antihistamines and decongestants so strong my lips were cracking and my hands were full of flaky, dry skin.  I can count at least two times I was moments from deciding to go to the hospital – and that scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

I can’t be around any sort of smoke.  Cigarette, BBQ or a burned pizza in the oven makes my airways seize up and the coughing fits begin.  Any sort of scented candle yields the same effect.  A strong perfume or cologne demands I sit at the opposite end of a room from you.  It’s nothing personal – I just really like breathing without distress.

I can manage what happens in my house for the most part.  Not always, but mostly.  The days my cleaning people come to the house can go either way.  I prefer to leave the house or stash myself in a guest bedroom upstairs until they are done.

But leaving the house has become a challenge as well in these bad cycles.  Taking Leah to the theater is a crap shoot – will the person next to me be bathed in Bed, Bath & Beyond’s latest floral cocktail?   Can I deal with the potpourri in the doctor’s office today?  Or should I just wait until the very last minute and then walk into the office and rush through the lobby?  Or what the hell is in the air today that the mere act of walking to the mailbox is making me cough and wheeze?

On any given day I could be totally fine or completely frustrated with how my body is deceiving me.    I know that what I have can be managed, I just haven’t figured out the answer to it yet.  But I’m tired.  No, I’m exhausted.

I’m exhausted from the feelings of broken and sick and weak and from medicines and side effects and inconsistency and g-ddamnit I’m so sick of coughing.  I’m sick of having to carry big purses because small ones don’t accommodate two Epi-Pens and two inhalers with an extender.  A Fendi baguette girl I am not these days.  Good thing totes are in this season.

This week begins a new treatment – allergy shots.  Go three times the first week and get stabbed.  Bring your Epi-Pen in case you have a reaction!  Then if it goes well we’ll send you home with a whole slew of vials and you can stab yourself weekly in the comfort of your own bathroom.

Awesome. 

So the adventure this week involves becoming a human pincushion for a bit.  Here’s to stabbing not making me feel stabby.  And to breathing again.