Pulmonary Function Test

Despite my best efforts to make my lungs misbehave, they didn't. Instead, they worked quite well for the whole of the pulmonary function test. This was one point when I wanted them to be their normal messed up selves, and they decided to be a healthy normal. Great. Meaning that we basically learned nothing. Because nothing was wrong at the time, even if I DO have asthma, we couldn't tell, because the bronchiodilator naturally did nothing as nothing was wrong at that moment in time! VERY frustrating. All the bronchidilator did was raise my heart rate/blood pressure a bit and make my hands shake, which I was told was a normal response (I did have to take four puffs of the inhaler, so it probably was quite a high dosage).

The main thing that came out of this for me was three words that a flute player NEVER wants to hear in relation to their physiology: "Low Lung Volume". Now, this was a thing for me that stood out, simply because I have always been able to phrase with the best of them, meaning professionals. I'm not even kidding, I can give as much power and sustain as long as the two professional flautists that I have played with from time to time in the city's symphony when the youth symphony would team up with them. To be honest, even when my breathing is normal, I seem to be taking a few more breaths than normal when I play.

My overall thoughts were intense frustration...because all the test really did was cause me to miss two classes, spend an hour or thereabouts breathing into machines, and two hours on the bus commuting from the university to the hospital and back again. I guess I wait and see what Dr. H says...

The best case scenario is that this is asthma that just wasn't picked up by this test. If it IS because of my aortic insufficiency, it's a whole different ball-game...in particular because my body is then more sensitive to it than other people's. It also means there is no 'easy fix'.

Let's just say that I want to see Dr. H SOON to get a handle on this. I naturally started having problems breathing-although not as severe as on tuesday-about three hours AFTER the steroids, which would have of course worn off by then anyways. Sigh.

I wonder if it is possible to get addicted to the positions that I breathe best in...it certainly feels like I could. Perhaps at some point I will grow less awkward with them, but for now, I definitely feel uncomfortable with people seeing me in them for that purpose. I mean, yes, squatting down on the floor to pick up something, fine...ending up practicing like that for 45 minutes...slightly strange. Yes, I am glad that I have found a couple of positions that work to breath much better, and I have perhaps even found a modified squatting position that works for when I am sitting down-it involves slouching forward a bit, and having my legs bent under the chair...I discovered this in choir-but I don't want to have to use them!

Life. Just when you think you have things figured out...

Better day in some ways, worse in others

Okay, so today I was psychologically a LOT better than yesterday. Physically, the answer is worse. My breathing was so bad a good chunk of the time that I was actually wondering if I should bus down to the urgent care center. Actually, at one point I was wondering if I was starting to have an allergic reaction because I was eating dinner...but it didn't seem to get worse.

Certain things seem to help, two positions work. One is bending over, and after looking at a diagram of the heart again it makes sense. I have aortic valve insufficiency, which means that some of the blood is flowing back into my ventricle when it should be going through the valve and into my aorta. If I'm bending over so that I'm basically upside down...gravity is probably helping to reverse that. The other weird position that helps, and I have NO clue on this one, because logic tells me it shouldn't (research says that it actually increases the sound of the murmur of aortic insufficiency), is squatting. I found that out randomly tonight. I always find things out randomly...in this case, I found that out while squatting to put my flute together. I had been breathing REALLY badly (this was right after eating dinner), and so being able to breath a lot more normally was a VERY nice thing!!! I basically practised the whole 45 minutes that I did squatting. I had to shift around a bit to keep my feet from losing circulation, but there was no denying that it worked. Every time I tried to stand and practice, my breathing would get really messed up again. I ended up working on my paper squatting a bit as well...which looked REALLY strange. At least in the practice room I had the door shut, but writing the paper I was in the open!

Yes, I was working on my paper for Research Methods! With some pretty good success, actually! I wrote close to 1000 words today in a pretty short amount of time, and was having fun too. I should be able to get it finished tomorrow. THAT will feel so amazing.

Tomorrow is my pulmonary function test. Let's just say I want answers, and I want them SOON. I can't play properly, I'm frequently having trouble breathing that's bothersome (at the least)...Is it too much for a flautist to ask to be able to breathe properly all the time?

So that was my day. Good on some points, but ARGH on breathing. Life, I guess.

Tears

Today, I just want to cry. Again and again. Not exactly sure why...I guess it just comes down to frustration, stress, worry, probably other chemical issues going on. Whatever the case, I am just wanting to curl up in my bed with my fleece penguin pajamas and my stuffed penguin Napoleon and sob my heart out. But, there is too much to do, so it's time to deny my feelings and get back to work.

I can't wait for wednesday.

Frustrated

I am so utterly frustrated with my lungs. I just want to be able to breath properly all the time, not just for small snippets of time. The past two days have not been very good with breathing, and I am sick and tired of it. I also don't want to be having to lie down in the middle of the day, which has now happened three times in the past few  days...wednesday, friday and today (perhaps it is an every-other-day trend?). Okay, so today's wasn't exactly lying down, but I did close my eyes for most of my friend M's 4th year clarinet recital. At least I wasn't sleeping though, I would not have been able to forgive myself for that! It was quite nice, and coincidently, I ended up sitting right behind her clarinet teacher, so I was able to tell her-and her mom!-that I saw him nodding a lot, keeping time with her playing, and being the first one to clap. All very good signs! Did I mention that I have now had problems breathing for almost FOUR months? I just want to be able to breath, and play my flute properly all the time. I know that that was part of why festival didn't go as I would have liked this year. I'm going to guess that it probably contributed to how nervous I became-out of the blue, and all of a sudden-when I basically don't get nervous before a performance. I have never really had problems with being nervous playing my flute. Piano, a bit, but even then it's never been something I couldn't handle. Tuesday's performance of the 2nd mvt of Bach's E minor sonata FELL APART. The first two lines were great, I entered confidently and with character, just as I rehearsed it, but when I hit the sixteenth notes, my fingers basically stopped functioning properly, and I really didn't get back into until the recapitulation at the end. The other classes weren't disaster-disasters but I certainly didn't play as well as I could have, and usually do. When I played my unaccompanied Telemann Fantasia #10, I was shaking so badly that I basically couldn't breath, and everything was so tight. It was pretty awful. And I only received an 84 in the class, ONE MARK away from moving on to Trophy class. I was SO ticked with the adjudicator, and she did it to a number of other people as well. I actually started crying after that. Her marks were really messed up though, as she gave a person who really flubbed everything up an 85, and then me and S, who basically played perfectly (although I took things a little slower) an 84. I am really looking forward to talking with my flute teacher L tomorrow...

All this makes me pretty panicked about how my jury is going to go in a few weeks time...and juries are worth a LOT more. And, it's my final jury of my music school career. Which is crazy, come to think of it. Also, my last performance assessment is due tomorrow. My last performance assessment ever. More craziness.

I suppose I should get on that performance assessment...!

Thoughts

1) My lungs are currently not my friends. Looking forward to getting them tested next wednesday.
2) The adjudicator at music festival needs to take a course on adjudicating. Her marks were insane, and unpredictable, and in a number of cases, just plain cruel.
3) Cavell makes for hard to understand reading, even whilst enjoying Starbucks green tea.
4) Perhaps reducing my Seroquel has had negative side effects that only became evident this week.
5) Hugs are the best. Especially when it is very, very mutual.
6) The high point of my day was talking with my main accompanist C! We have quite the understanding now not just on music, but on life.
7) I am not looking forward to doing all the Children's Art Tax Credit forms tomorrow.
8) Thank goodness for fleece pajamas.

There are about a bazillion more thoughts running through my head, but it has been a very emotionally charged and mentally exhausting three days. Perhaps in a few days when I've had some time to talk with my flute teachers and flute friends, I can write about it.

Productivity level=almost zero

This is what I found out from writing only 266 words in about an hour and a half. Sigh. Note that I am incredibly frustrated with myself. I want my crazy levels of productivity back!!!!! On top of that, the one wisdom tooth that is the furthest in is driving me crazy because it is trying to come up further. Let's just say that I have great sympathy for teething babies at this point (did I mention that it has now been...six months...since they started breaking through and none of them are even HALF uncovered?). The good news is that this cold has been quite mild. Irritating, a bit, and friday evening I was hit a bit hard, but besides that, it really hasn't been that bad. It did exacerbate my cough today, but all things told, it could be a LOT worse. I should still be at almost-peak performance level for my festival class tomorrow, when I play the second movement of Bach's E minor sonata. Did I mention that I LOVE Bach's flute sonatas? This is now the fourth one that I have played, and one of the other years I played Bach's Suite in B minor. The only problem with festival is that they only let you play ONE movement of a piece!! At least at the flute-specific festival come May, we can chose to play one movement, two, three, all, so long as it fits into 15 minutes.

Cage's Lecture On Nothing was discussed/presented upon in Philosophy of Music today. It clarified things a bit...to a certain degree. I have more Cage readings to finish, and obviously, I need to write more of that 266/c.3000 words paper.

Today was Pancake Monday at the FoM, which, when combined with companionship, helped relieve the crazy depression feelings that I felt when I got up this morning and took the bus down to the university. It was just one of those mornings when you wake up and feel like crying and can't really figure out why. The day did mostly improve as it went along...chocolate chip pancakes are delicious, being with friends is great, getting a hug is even greater, having two classes go well is good, having a good lesson with a very encouraging flute teacher definitely helped...

Sometimes, I can't help but wonder if maybe I have decreased my medication too far, that I really do need a little bit of a higher dosage. Last night, I didn't even take 25mg. I know this because I am cutting the 100mg tablets into 4 pieces, and it isn't exactly precise, but we are talking a medication that I have PSYCHIATRIST permission to alter the dosage on. I really can't say whether decreasing would have this effect, whether it is just one of those random life things, whether it is other stuff going on, you get the picture.

Well, now that my rants have been somewhat satisfied, I will get onto reading those Cage articles, and perhaps even writing some more of the essay. Real work, not just relieving feelings, although as I often say to people, if writing helps, if art helps, if music helps, if running helps, if hot baths help, if tea helps, go for it. Okay, so those are all things that I like. Although I haven't done any running besides unsuccessful between-classes-in-close-by-buildings runs that ended with crazy breathing or coughing issues. Just over a week until my pulmonary function test. Hopefully it will let us know something. Although the coughing might be 'nothing', I can definitely not deny the problems with breathing that were going on for some time before everything fell apart, even if it is a weird coincidence that they started on a day that I had a paper due and was a bit concerned about, but trust me, I have had waaaaay more stress about papers before. And the breathing episode that came along with losing sensation in my hands and the tachycardia? Well, that began during a friend's recital when I was very relaxed. Explain that one! Or, explain how I was breathing EXCEPTIONALLY well whilst waiting at my last appointment. One would think that if I was going to be affected by stress, waiting to get back results from an echocardiogram would be amongst the most stressful times, and would thus cause the symptoms to increase. Instead, they decreased. I have a feeling that I am going through a denial/acceptance period here with my pulmonary function test, just as I did with the echocardiogram, girating back and forth between yes-there-is-something-wrong and no-there-is-nothing-wrong. Though, I know that part of the reason that I thought there would be nothing wrong on the echocardiogram is that I did not see mitral valve prolapse, which I had previously seen on a picture on the internet and had figured was most likely that I had (given that 30% of patients with ED's have mitral valve prolapse, it is often diagnosed in younger women, it is the most common valve condition, etc etc). So, having ruled that out, I began to think that maybe I was just imagining things. I wasn't though, so perhaps I should trust my instincts on the gut feeling I had perhaps after the second time that the breathing thing happened. I mean, if it had happened once, sure, I could accept that as stress. But after happening another time or two? Sure, I was ignoring it, pushing it aside, thinking that maybe I was anaemic, but deep down, I knew that there was something up, and that I really should get it checked out, even though I was afraid of being labelled a hypochondriac by my doctor. I had actually been planning to phone up my doctor's office and make an appointment the day after classes ended, or thereabouts...although I was still thinking that things would probably just resolve once classes were finished.

As we know, my body had other ideas. And so it continues. I would say that pretty much everyday at some point, I will notice some degree of problems breathing. Sometimes not too bad, sometimes really annoying, and if I wasn't experienced with that degree of difficulty breathing, I would probably be more concerned. Sometimes I hide just how bad it is from those around me (perhaps not such a smart decision), but the people I spent the most time with-my flute friends, my wind ensemble conductor, my flute instructor, my small ensemble instructor, some of my other friends from other classes-all know what's up. A number of them were right there when 'it' happened (thankfully). Once I have whether I have asthma or not sorted out, I will be investing in a medic alert bracelet, but there is no point in getting one right now when the diagnosis is possibly incomplete. At this point, even if they said there is no asthma, it would still be important to put something about the heart valve down, along with my new-found latex sensitivity (an emergency surgery someday with latex gloves could pose a big problem, and just because a valve perhaps isn't causing great problems at the moment doesn't mean that it couldn't start causing huge problems relatively quickly). But...I'm not about to spend the money twice!

Busy Sunday and certain thoughts.

A 'busy' sunday involves having to miss church for volunteering at the symphony kid's concert, then walking about twenty minutes to the main downtown library, working on reading John Cage's "Lecture on Nothing", taking some notes for my Opera History exam on Bizet's Carmen, walking to catch a bus to my accompanist's place for a rehearsal for my five music festival performances, rehearsing with my accompanist, bussing home...there is still so much to do.

My rehearsal wasn't amazing. I felt like my tone was awful, I kept missing things...let's just say that I felt very discouraged. Fortunately, a text from my friend H did help to get me feeling a bit better. I think my cold was probably playing into things a bit too, I kept on feeling a bit dizzy etc.

Now for the kickers...my eating disorder thoughts have been WAY overactive the past few days. As in hating myself, hating the way I look, paranoid that being a pound or two different in weight will mean that I will never stop gaining weight and won't lose that little bit (never mind the logic that it is likely water weight, and will probably go back down given that I see this many months). You get the picture. Am I restricting? I really don't know. Have I thought about going to extreme measures? Yes, I have, although I haven't done anything. Is this normal for a person who has battled an eating disorder. Unfortunately, for many of us, yes. Eating disorders don't just go away, it's not like a cold virus. I guess a good comparison can be made to treating cancer. For many people, treating the cancer is successful, in that the disease is basically gone...however, there are after effects from the treatments or the damage that the cancer caused that will never go away. Up to 75% of kids treated for cancer have lingering effects from the treatment, I'd say that that number is probably pretty accurate in eating disorder people as well that will continue to have thoughts, or after-effects, even if they never go into full-phase again.

Time to get things back in order. Somehow, even though I am a very organized, tidy person, on friday-sunday, my room always gets a bit jumbled...plus, I have those papers to do, practising to do, perhaps some cooking to do, a schedule to figure out for the week, maybe some laundry. At least I can do everything from the comfort of fleece pajamas, with more tea. Although perhaps not green tea. I've already  had four cups today.