My not-so-iron lungs

Last week, an ugly bought of wheezing, chest pains and phlegmy cough presented the first serious threat to my marathon hopes. It had actually been creeping up for the past month or so, since I started running 20-plus kilometre distances and stopped the inhalation of all things not air.

Running wasn’t really a problem, but I was short of breath before bed and in the morning. And the taste of what I was coughing up throughout the day was enough to wish my taste buds could go back their pre-quitting-smoking uselessness.

What I thought would be a renaissance for my poor old lungs was turning into asthmatic odyssey reminiscent of my worst days as a smoker. I kept picturing that poor wretch on the ‘Cigarettes Leave You Breathless’ warning label, wondering how I ever convinced myself smoking on and off for 10 years was a good idea.

When I finally got to see my doctor about it earlier this week, I feared that the marathon would get shut down and that my long-standing asthma was mutating into something more serious. I braced myself for bad news.

Instead, I got a fairly positive diagnosis that seemed to explain all my symptoms. Apparently, the microscopic hairs that line and clean the bronchial tubes (pictured above) are returning after their years-long extinction, and are thusly producing the heinous mucus that I had been horking up. And because I had been stubbornly refusing to take my ashthma inhalers before running (trying to be all natural and whatnot), my lungs had been working extra hard to provide enough oxygen during exercise, hence the minor pains I had been experiencing.

The increased prevalence of wheezing was chalked up to the vast changes my body has experienced in the past five months. Asthma is an elusive and ever-evolving malaise that can react unpredictable to changes in environment and lifestyle, the doctor said. And because I hadn’t given up smoking everything until very recently, my lungs and their itinerant conditions have to play catch-up with the rest of my now-healthy body.

Best of all (except for not being diagnosed with emphysemalungcancerpleurisy), I could keep running. Armed with a new proactive asthma inhaler, I feel like a weight has literally been lifted off my chest. “A healthy young guy like you shouldn’t worry so much,” the doctor said, “try to keep that in mind.”