Much ado about puffing

Not reaaallly! The old exercise test went okay today, ish.
I arrived quite early to allow for a leisurely change in to my hardcore fitness gear and a nervous wee (the wee bit before the dressing bit obviously, I wasn't that nervous). Then twiddled my thumbs for a bit while the Supernintendant Physio supernintended around doing general supernintendery things. Which included getting the CD player out of the storecupboard. Now, I at first thought that she was getting it out so that we could have music on whilst I hopped on the treadmill or bike ect... how WRONG I was. No, no, no... apparently I like grabbing sticks at the wrong end. What we were actually doing today was, in modified form, the bleep test. Memories of PE lessons came flooding back. I thought that I'd be just walking and running on the treadmill and doing sats but apparently that's not really the most controlled way to assess and reassess my fitness/ o2 levels at exact intervals, so ho hum.
It was in fact a VERY modified bleep test called the Incremental Shuttle Walking Test (ISWT). Each shuttle is 10 metres, and starts very slow, then increases every minute so you're jogging. There's 12 levels, and I'm proud to say I completed it. Because it's quite easy.
The test certainly puts the mental in incremental... snails are faster. However it was also difficult to keep turning round every 10 metres and wait for the bleep or try and keep up with it ect ect.
My sats? Drum roll... much the same given that this was not a maximal test by any means *only jogging for about 3 mins). They didn't start going down much untill 4-5 minutes in, once at a mild-moderate walking pace. Once the walk was brisk and then a bit later fast enough to jog, my sats average 82, with the lowest being 78. Low, but this was was room air. It does indicate that I still need just the 2 litres for walking moderately for any more than a few minutes, and that I will still be sticking on the 10litres for longer running intervals (of more than 3 minutes). However, I said that I would be comfortable cutting the o2 down to 6 litres whilst I do short intervals of 2 minutes, because I don't start having really low sats untill a few minutes in.
From this, the plan is to repeat this same test a couple of times in a few weeks and see how things improve, then once they plateau, we'll do the oxygen titration test again.
This is the treadmill one, where I'll simulate a normal to intense workout and we'll see how much o2 I need to maintain sats above 88%. I last did this as an inpatient, and my sats were 81% after 4 minutes jogging on 10 litres o2. So I'll look forward to seeing those figures a bit higher!!

I also nipped up to the ward to get my steroid shot done. Always good to get these fine buttocks out. And that was it! All over and done with in less than 1 1/2 hours! Off homey again and have had a shorter walk totally 3.5 miles today. Because I'm doing an early jog session tomorrow, followed by some cross training in the gym. So I'll be a bit shattered I think!

More reports to come... bet you can't wait xxx