Living Well Until We Die

One day last month, I coughed 276 times in a day. And peed 16 times, 5 of which demanded that I rise from sleep. It was a bad day.

I had been having a lot of bad days. For about three months my asthma and interstitial cystitis had gotten signficantly worse. A constant cough and overactive bladder have plagued me for thirty-ish years. The natural herbs, acupuncture, bee pollen, occasional albuterol and pyridium no longer worked. I felt defeated and hopeless.

Living well until we die is my motto. That was feeling pretty hard to do when every day my physical quality of life was seriously compromised. What is a death doula to do?

Since then I have gotten on an inhaler, tried a heavy drug that wiped me out, and seen a speech therapist who taught me to slow my spasms to cough by exhaling slowly instead of giving in to the spasm. 

I also have met with a pelvic floor physical therapist and taken an online pelvic floor strengthening class and completely changed my normal breathing to contract and pull up my pelvic floor upon exhalation. 

I also have been getting treatments on a medically approved and designed system for strengthening the pelvic floor and decreasing urinary incontinence called Emcella. 

The exhalation of my breath seems to help both my coughing and my bladder, leading me to believe that the root cause of both problems , could be related to my nervous system. I have seen a huge improvement.

I still have a long ways to go. But yesterday I coughed only 16 times. I had to get up only twice at night to use the bathroom the last three nights. Things are looking up! I feel hopeful again!

Here is to healthy aging and helpful practices! Here's to calming exhalations! And here's to living fully until we die!