Medically supervised exercise

[Guest guest]

I just had my first visit to the Pendelton Center which has medically supervised exercises. It is NOT pulmonary rehab but they take your O2 and blood pressure and your blood sugar many times while you are there. They have all sorts of machines...some resistance and some not. They had to stop me on the Treadmill because my oxygen went too low and my heart rate jumped too high. Odd that I had that reaction just to the treadmill. Anyway they wanted some goals for me and I said to "Maintain" what I have and I saw that depressed them so I said "To be able to walk a mile in 6 months." I don't think I will ever reach this goal and didn't know how to explain to them that just maintaining where I am is the realistic goal and that even with exercise it is possible I will get worse...they didn't seem to understand what my problem is. And, I was wondering if people with COPD actually were able to do this...increase their ability to do things as a result of exercises? Unless my fibrosis goes away I probably will never be able to walk a mile again. So, in a way the encounter depressed me when maintaining what I have was seen as a failure attitude. Joyce Rudy AZ Birds