Normally after a Kaiser appointment I leave seething for some reason or another: not being able to get an appointment when I’m desperate with a fever, appointments running over an hour late, doctors not properly checking out my ish, etc. etc. aaaaand etc. To say that I have contempt for that company is an understatement but I was denied by a couple other providers, they’re the cheapest, my mother insists I need insurance, whatever. I’ll switch it up and get the cadillac of policies from a PPO once I’m making my millions. But until then - let’s just hope nothing major goes down. 

Since I’m in a wedding in a week and can’t afford to be standing up there looking like I have epilepsy from holding in my hacking, I went in today to get my cough checked out. It’s been lingering for several weeks - before, during, and especially after the RTO. The same thing happened late last year, right before my last marathon and my cough lasted for a solid 3 months (my contempt kept me from going in, just to avoid giving them the $30 copay) before morphing into a full-on dramatic fever fest at which point I had to go in. They gave me some chest x-rays, told me I had bronchitis, gave me some antibiotics and $100 later, sent me on my way. 

This time I went in to see the first doctor that had the one open appointment, one I had seen before and I wasn’t particularly happy with him. He had been a bit too swift, downplayed preventative care, typed while I talked, and ended our conversation with the words “So, do you want to burn it off?” Ummmm…burn WHAT off?? You haven’t even told me what it is? MAKE ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT THIS!

For the record, it wasn’t serious and wasn’t what you might think. 

But I demand service people. And when you have some sort of acid dripping from some sci-fi looking tube and you’re wearing a hazmat suit like you’re going into a leprosy refugee camp, I need to know what’s going on. And I need my hand held just a little bit. Anyway, apparently it wasn’t meant to be a big deal and it got the job done. Fine. 

So, today. Dr. Burnitoff starts asking me questions about what’s going on, shakes his head about the bronchitis reference and immediately says “You have asthma, likely induced by exercise” And, though I might have had a reaction to this kind of news (asthma? inhalers? no running??) I didn’t today. I’ve been flowing with things dudes, diving straight into them and it’s been working for me or at least my disposition. Everything is just…unfolding. 

So I roll with it. It makes sense, really. My mother has asthma, my uncle got it in adulthood and my grandma is walking around with a flippin oxygen tank (from the cigs, but not the “funny” kind). I had an acute asthma attack once during an indoor game in high school but didn’t see one again until the third leg of the RTO (though this time I thought nothing of it given what I had just put my body through). Not to mention Ms. Claire the Intuit asking me over the RTO if I had asthma “because for some reason she always thought I did” and our multiple conversations about Gemini’s consistently having respiratory problems because we’re air signs and have “trouble speaking our own truth.”

So, yeah. Of course. 

We did some x-rays (came out clear), checked for STD’s (while I’m there, eh? I already paid the copay and it’s appropriate to have a slip on hand that says “I’m clean!” if you’re going to demand one from others, not that there are any [Sahara of dry spells]) and gave me some steroids to clear out whatever I have going on in there and an inhaler to use before I run/cycle.  

Side note about steroids: WTF! I could eat an entire cow right now. A whole one. I’m EMPTY and I just ate! I’m sucking down water like I really did just crawl my way out of the Sahara. And this also makes me feel bad for little Bailey. We had him on steroids for the last 6 years of his life to keep those hind legs trucking. And to think, 6 years of being this hungry! I can’t imagine. He probably thought we were starving him :(

So $95 later, I’m home. I ran today and it didn’t go very well. I AM a little peeved that this might hover above me for, you know, the rest of my life. But we’ll see how things go the rest of the week. Dr. Burnitoff might be wrong, he admitted as much. And in the meantime I was given no information about what this is to look like for me in the long term because I was flowing and I didn’t even think to ask. But I’m not panicked - plenty of people are runners with asthma. Ultimately, whatever’s coming is already on the train.