Quick little update

I got back on the bike for the first time on Tuesday evening, going to see Neil Gaiman at the Church Hill Theatre. I didn't fail to make it up the hills (it's almost up hill all the way to Morningside) or have a massive asthma attack, which were my two main fears. I've biked to work every day since. I'm still a bit husky, but nothing terrible, and the preventative inhaler seems to be working. It's "the brown one" (Beclometasone) which isn't all that powerful as they go.

It's been really cold this week. I have been wearing a fleece over my longsleeved technical top while I cycle, and gloves with closed fingers, and a hat, and I'm still cold. Britain has had some freaky weather this week - snow in the south of England, which doesn't usually happen at this time of year if at all - and although Edinburgh hasn't had snow, it feels very wintry.

This is a problem for J, as he appears to have developed Raynaud's disease, which is a circulation problem that comes on when it's cold. His fingers go yellow and nasty-looking, and they're very painful as they warm up. We're thinking of getting him some heated gloves as it's a particular problem when he's cycling. In the meantime, I am pestering him to remember to wear his woolly gloves, and giving him my small hot hands to hold.

Cough cough

Well, I've been to the doctor. The cough was diagnosed as probably a virus which has been complicated by asthma - the virus itself has run its course by now, but my lungs are now irritated by all the coughing. Which means that I keep coughing and irritate them further, and so on. She says I may just have lungs which are easily irritated.

She's given me a preventative inhaler (which I 've never had before) and told me to rest. Which sounds good.

At first I was a little incredulous, since my asthma is generally triggered only by allergens and very cold dry air, and often I don't pick up my inhaler for months at a time. But now that I think about it, this happened to me on a lesser scale when I was 20: I had mild bronchitis, but the cough lingered on through most of a university term, causing me to miss a lot of football practice. And according to Mum, my little brother used to have similar problems.

The new inhaler does seem to have improved matters a little already; I'm still coughing, but not so breathless. I'm still quite sore, though. I don't think I'll be going running just yet. Maybe next week.