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It ain't easy being wheezy.
I've been a lifelong sufferer of asthma. Let's just get that out there. As a kid I longed to join in with my mates at all the different sports they were doing especially football (soccer for you weird types). It was hard. I mean it was horrible. I would run until my body was racked with pain then I'd have to stop and take long slow breaths with my shirt up over my nose in order to generate warm air for my lungs. If I was going to be apart of what my friends were enjoying then the only way was to be a goalkeeper. No running. Simple. It wasn't what I really wanted but at least I was playing.
I was in and out of hospital frequently in my early years which I hated. I wanted to be down the park with my mates not stuck in a room with a vapouriser concentrating on breathing. I mean breathing is easy isn't it? In out, in out etc. It's something we all take for granted. Well not for an asthma sufferer. When it hits it hits hard and every breath is a calculated motion for however long it lasts. Childhood doesn't last forever though.
Through my teens and into my early adulthood I learned to manage the condition and made a conscious decision to not let it shape who I was and to dictate what I could and couldn't do. To that end I joined the gym and trained hard to expand my lung capacity and allow myself the chance to compete with my friends again. I tried playing football again and was accepted into my local side but was never a regular until I covered for the injured goalkeeper. That was that, I was now the reserve keeper who could do a bit of running on the field as well every now and then.
Then in 1987 everything changed. I had always loved cycling. During my healthy periods as a child I loved racing around on my little Raleigh doing skids, making homemade jumps and trying to wheelie. As a teenager I cycled to school and also got a job as a paperboy. But in 1987 something magical happened. I bought a mountain bike. Nothing special. In fact it was pretty poor by todays standards. It was a catalogue job with chrome wheels that buckled the first time I tried doing anything remotely risky on it but by then I was hooked. Up until then the best thing I'd ever done on a bike was win my primary schools sports day slow-bicycle race (I still have the certificate 1977). I couldn't do anything fast back then. The idea was to cycle as slowly as possible for 100 meters with the person coming last actually coming first if that makes sense. The catalogue bike lasted a while before being stolen by someone that clearly knew nothing about bikes. More fool them. This was my opportunity to move into the world of mountain biking properly and I promptly hot-footed it to my local bike shop and purchased a gorgeous purple Muddyfox Pathfinder. Nothing was going to stop me now. Definitely not some dodgy lungs.
For the next few years I grew steadily fitter and was managing my asthma well. As my love of the sport grew I eventually changed bikes for a Kona hard tail and a Marin full-susser which then morphed into a lovely new Proflex. I even entered a few races and was massively happy with top thirty finishes. It was a big deal for me. I never got any better than that but just to be doing something this sporty and exciting was enough. I loved the natural world and loved being outdoors and having the means by which I could get out into the hills and explore was so important to me. I now had the fitness and the means to go anywhere I wanted and I loved it. Mountain-biking made this possible. Throughout the nineties I spent a few long weekends riding multi-day long distances with friends in various places around the British Isles as well as riding little known places that have now become huge popular trail centres. It's fair to say that mountain-biking was my life at this point. I was spending way too much in time and money on my passion and it was helping me to keep my asthma at bay so all was good.
There's always a but...
Then in 2005 I was somehow chosen to receive a rather rare and nasty present. I had been pretty good health wise for a number of years (pretty good for me anyway). Then in 2005 It all went horribly wrong. I had been feeling ropey for a few months with sporadic problems breathing and a tight chest and the docs had put it down to a mild infection. Numerous tests showed nothing out of the ordinary. Then in early 05 it ramped-up significantly with extreme coughing fits and sickness. In late April I visited hospital for a routine x-ray but before they could check me I collapsed. I spent the next two weeks in hospital being poked and prodded and having countless blood samples taken. I mentioned earlier about the 'rare' present. Well it took two weeks of probing but the docs finally found the cause of all my discomfort. I had somehow contracted a very rare form of pneumonia called Acute Eosiniphilic Pneumonia which was slowly ripping apart my lungs. It was so rare that they even asked if I would consent to my case being recorded in the medical journal The Lancet. I of course agreed. Fame at last.
I stayed in hospital for another two weeks while they decided on how best to treat my condition. Lots of drugs was the obvious answer and so it proved to be. Recuperating at home was tough. Was this the end of my biking days? Was I going to have to sell all my much loved gear? It took six months of drugs to get me back on my feet again by which time my fitness was zero and I'd lost a lot of muscle. But I was alive so all was good. I had an amazing network of family and friends around me that kept me sane and made sure that my head never dropped for too long but the one thing that kept me going was the thought of getting out on my bike again. I still had the Proflex.
I'm a Taurean so am pretty stubborn. It was this stubbornness and sheer refusal to believe that I'd never ride again that drove me on. I started walking. You have to walk before you can ride (I think that's a well known quote). Then when I felt up to it I started going to the gym again and started the entire process of getting fit once more. It was a slow process but I was determined and eventually I managed to overcome the illness and get out riding again but not with as much vigour as before, as the illness had definitely taken something out of me. By now most of my mates had stopped riding so much and were becoming fathers and had other demands on their time. I didn't like riding alone anymore. I put my bike in the shed. It stayed there for about two years.
Then in 2009 I started a new job. It wasn't far from home so I started cycling to work taking the offroad route as much as I could. One of my new work colleagues who was about 15 years my junior was quite interested in mountain biking and we struck up a good rapport. It was great to see his enthusiasm for the sport and it started to rub off on me. He never stopped talking about it. He was always asking me about my bikes and places I'd ridden and for tips and ideas on set-ups and this and that etc I loved it. The thought that I could be seen as some sort of sage. A font of all knowledge regarding mountain biking. He was massaging my ego and it was working I realised that I was slowly falling back in love with it again.
We are still working together and thanks to him and a couple of his other friends I have totally re-immersed myself in the wonderful World of mountain bikes. Over the last couple of years we have been to quite a few of the new trail centres in the south and west of the UK and it has been great watching my new proteges develop into fully fledged mtb'ers. We have ridden some great trails over the last year or two and my fitness has been improving with every ride as well as my mind and soul. Then just last spring we spent a long weekend in Wales riding a host of different trail centres that we had never ridden before. It was fantastic. I was still riding my Proflex and nailing the singletrack. However, I realised that I was struggling a little more than usual up the climbs. I'd always loved climbing (idiot) and thought that my tiredness was just down to my age and that the juniors were just younger and naturally fitter than me which was why I was holding them up. There could be something in that of course but on returning from the trip I noticed that I was getting fatigued easily and was having small bouts of coughing again. I just put it down to a chest cold (as you do being a male) and tried to forget about it but it persisted right through the Summer and on into Autumn by which time it had gotten worse and I had seriously started thinking that the pneumonia had come back again. This was not good. WTF!
I went back to the doctor who immediately referred me to the specialist that had seen to me ten years previously. After exhaustive tests and scans it was revealed that I had Bronchiectasis, a by-product of asthma. The good news was that it was treatable if not curable. That means that if managed correctly I can live a pretty normal life. I don't want a normal life. The last few months have been hard. The Bronchiectasis is proving harder to bring under control than was expected. We found out the reason for this recently when I was also diagnosed with COPD. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. This was quite a blow (excuse the pun). Now I'm fighting three separate lung disorders. When life gives you lemons ...
I was really enjoying things again. I was learning to jump (not something I'm used to as I've always been a xc boy). I was starting to re-educate myself in the ways of trail riding and it was going so well. I said I was stubborn and I am. I decided that although a massive blow both physically and mentally I am not going to let it beat me or define who I am even at this stage in my life. To that end I have sold my Proflex (two in fact) and purchased a brand new all singing, all dancing machine and some day soon I am going go back to those same trail centres and rip the arse out of them. The word soon might be a little optimistic with the way I'm currently feeling but I am determined to get over this latest setback and get on that shiny new steed. However, If that proves more difficult than I'd expected I have even given thought to buying one of the new power-assisted models that are floating around now. People may think that it's cheating but to be honest I don't really care. I'll do anything to get back out into the wilderness and breathe in all that wonderful fresh air. And if I can have some more excitement and thrills along the way then I'll be a very happy bunny indeed.
Mountainbiking isn't everything but it's damn close.
Love your lungs.
Just get out & ride.
p.s. In 2014 I rode from London to Paris for charity on a road bike (please don't hate me). If I can do it anyone can. Never give up.
I was in and out of hospital frequently in my early years which I hated. I wanted to be down the park with my mates not stuck in a room with a vapouriser concentrating on breathing. I mean breathing is easy isn't it? In out, in out etc. It's something we all take for granted. Well not for an asthma sufferer. When it hits it hits hard and every breath is a calculated motion for however long it lasts. Childhood doesn't last forever though.
Through my teens and into my early adulthood I learned to manage the condition and made a conscious decision to not let it shape who I was and to dictate what I could and couldn't do. To that end I joined the gym and trained hard to expand my lung capacity and allow myself the chance to compete with my friends again. I tried playing football again and was accepted into my local side but was never a regular until I covered for the injured goalkeeper. That was that, I was now the reserve keeper who could do a bit of running on the field as well every now and then.
Then in 1987 everything changed. I had always loved cycling. During my healthy periods as a child I loved racing around on my little Raleigh doing skids, making homemade jumps and trying to wheelie. As a teenager I cycled to school and also got a job as a paperboy. But in 1987 something magical happened. I bought a mountain bike. Nothing special. In fact it was pretty poor by todays standards. It was a catalogue job with chrome wheels that buckled the first time I tried doing anything remotely risky on it but by then I was hooked. Up until then the best thing I'd ever done on a bike was win my primary schools sports day slow-bicycle race (I still have the certificate 1977). I couldn't do anything fast back then. The idea was to cycle as slowly as possible for 100 meters with the person coming last actually coming first if that makes sense. The catalogue bike lasted a while before being stolen by someone that clearly knew nothing about bikes. More fool them. This was my opportunity to move into the world of mountain biking properly and I promptly hot-footed it to my local bike shop and purchased a gorgeous purple Muddyfox Pathfinder. Nothing was going to stop me now. Definitely not some dodgy lungs.
For the next few years I grew steadily fitter and was managing my asthma well. As my love of the sport grew I eventually changed bikes for a Kona hard tail and a Marin full-susser which then morphed into a lovely new Proflex. I even entered a few races and was massively happy with top thirty finishes. It was a big deal for me. I never got any better than that but just to be doing something this sporty and exciting was enough. I loved the natural world and loved being outdoors and having the means by which I could get out into the hills and explore was so important to me. I now had the fitness and the means to go anywhere I wanted and I loved it. Mountain-biking made this possible. Throughout the nineties I spent a few long weekends riding multi-day long distances with friends in various places around the British Isles as well as riding little known places that have now become huge popular trail centres. It's fair to say that mountain-biking was my life at this point. I was spending way too much in time and money on my passion and it was helping me to keep my asthma at bay so all was good.
There's always a but...
Then in 2005 I was somehow chosen to receive a rather rare and nasty present. I had been pretty good health wise for a number of years (pretty good for me anyway). Then in 2005 It all went horribly wrong. I had been feeling ropey for a few months with sporadic problems breathing and a tight chest and the docs had put it down to a mild infection. Numerous tests showed nothing out of the ordinary. Then in early 05 it ramped-up significantly with extreme coughing fits and sickness. In late April I visited hospital for a routine x-ray but before they could check me I collapsed. I spent the next two weeks in hospital being poked and prodded and having countless blood samples taken. I mentioned earlier about the 'rare' present. Well it took two weeks of probing but the docs finally found the cause of all my discomfort. I had somehow contracted a very rare form of pneumonia called Acute Eosiniphilic Pneumonia which was slowly ripping apart my lungs. It was so rare that they even asked if I would consent to my case being recorded in the medical journal The Lancet. I of course agreed. Fame at last.
I stayed in hospital for another two weeks while they decided on how best to treat my condition. Lots of drugs was the obvious answer and so it proved to be. Recuperating at home was tough. Was this the end of my biking days? Was I going to have to sell all my much loved gear? It took six months of drugs to get me back on my feet again by which time my fitness was zero and I'd lost a lot of muscle. But I was alive so all was good. I had an amazing network of family and friends around me that kept me sane and made sure that my head never dropped for too long but the one thing that kept me going was the thought of getting out on my bike again. I still had the Proflex.
I'm a Taurean so am pretty stubborn. It was this stubbornness and sheer refusal to believe that I'd never ride again that drove me on. I started walking. You have to walk before you can ride (I think that's a well known quote). Then when I felt up to it I started going to the gym again and started the entire process of getting fit once more. It was a slow process but I was determined and eventually I managed to overcome the illness and get out riding again but not with as much vigour as before, as the illness had definitely taken something out of me. By now most of my mates had stopped riding so much and were becoming fathers and had other demands on their time. I didn't like riding alone anymore. I put my bike in the shed. It stayed there for about two years.
Then in 2009 I started a new job. It wasn't far from home so I started cycling to work taking the offroad route as much as I could. One of my new work colleagues who was about 15 years my junior was quite interested in mountain biking and we struck up a good rapport. It was great to see his enthusiasm for the sport and it started to rub off on me. He never stopped talking about it. He was always asking me about my bikes and places I'd ridden and for tips and ideas on set-ups and this and that etc I loved it. The thought that I could be seen as some sort of sage. A font of all knowledge regarding mountain biking. He was massaging my ego and it was working I realised that I was slowly falling back in love with it again.
We are still working together and thanks to him and a couple of his other friends I have totally re-immersed myself in the wonderful World of mountain bikes. Over the last couple of years we have been to quite a few of the new trail centres in the south and west of the UK and it has been great watching my new proteges develop into fully fledged mtb'ers. We have ridden some great trails over the last year or two and my fitness has been improving with every ride as well as my mind and soul. Then just last spring we spent a long weekend in Wales riding a host of different trail centres that we had never ridden before. It was fantastic. I was still riding my Proflex and nailing the singletrack. However, I realised that I was struggling a little more than usual up the climbs. I'd always loved climbing (idiot) and thought that my tiredness was just down to my age and that the juniors were just younger and naturally fitter than me which was why I was holding them up. There could be something in that of course but on returning from the trip I noticed that I was getting fatigued easily and was having small bouts of coughing again. I just put it down to a chest cold (as you do being a male) and tried to forget about it but it persisted right through the Summer and on into Autumn by which time it had gotten worse and I had seriously started thinking that the pneumonia had come back again. This was not good. WTF!
I went back to the doctor who immediately referred me to the specialist that had seen to me ten years previously. After exhaustive tests and scans it was revealed that I had Bronchiectasis, a by-product of asthma. The good news was that it was treatable if not curable. That means that if managed correctly I can live a pretty normal life. I don't want a normal life. The last few months have been hard. The Bronchiectasis is proving harder to bring under control than was expected. We found out the reason for this recently when I was also diagnosed with COPD. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. This was quite a blow (excuse the pun). Now I'm fighting three separate lung disorders. When life gives you lemons ...
I was really enjoying things again. I was learning to jump (not something I'm used to as I've always been a xc boy). I was starting to re-educate myself in the ways of trail riding and it was going so well. I said I was stubborn and I am. I decided that although a massive blow both physically and mentally I am not going to let it beat me or define who I am even at this stage in my life. To that end I have sold my Proflex (two in fact) and purchased a brand new all singing, all dancing machine and some day soon I am going go back to those same trail centres and rip the arse out of them. The word soon might be a little optimistic with the way I'm currently feeling but I am determined to get over this latest setback and get on that shiny new steed. However, If that proves more difficult than I'd expected I have even given thought to buying one of the new power-assisted models that are floating around now. People may think that it's cheating but to be honest I don't really care. I'll do anything to get back out into the wilderness and breathe in all that wonderful fresh air. And if I can have some more excitement and thrills along the way then I'll be a very happy bunny indeed.
Mountainbiking isn't everything but it's damn close.
Love your lungs.
Just get out & ride.
p.s. In 2014 I rode from London to Paris for charity on a road bike (please don't hate me). If I can do it anyone can. Never give up.
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