Oyxgen!!

 

This song has been in my head for months now.  Maybe the universe has been trying to tell me something.  I've been listening, but my doctor hasn't.  I finally got some supplemental oxygen and what a difference!  The lung spasms have been reduced by 80% or better.  They only spasm when I get too excited, angry, emotional, etc.  And don't even think of making me laugh...it really scares me when I try to laugh.  

One of the things that makes me angry, is how much suffering could have been alleviated if my doctor had cared enough just to get me some oxygen.  It would have been great if he had cared enough months even a year ago to check out why my pet scans were lighting up with with hilar lymph nodes and correlated that with the cough I was telling him about. It would have been nice if he had been interested enough just to run a simple CT scan, just to check it out.  I bet he would have seen the ground glass opacities then.  And then we could have stopped my meds and let it heal without the damage that has been done by letting it run rampant for over a year.  

Woulda, shoulda, coulda...WHATEVER!  Right now, although relieved to have found some relief and I try to focus on that, the anger of how simple it would have been for him to give me oxygen, if he had cared; how much suffering over the past 4 months could have been avoided.  Not to mention the damage done by coughing and spasming for 4 unnecessary months.  It is hard not to HATE...but anger makes me cough.  I am working on it.   

The improvements give me hope.  I have often said to the doctors that "No one thing works for 5 days".  When I got the oxygen, I felt the difference within 10 minutes.  It was amazing that I could hold a conversation without coughing and spasming.  Friday was a good day.  I felt so good, Ron and I even went out for dinner and did a little shopping.  Then the batteries started to die on the O2 compressor and we had to hurry home.  I guess I have about 2 hours on that, but I do have a car charger, so I just have to plan better. 

 But for every day I feel good and do things while I feel good, I pay for it in hours and even a day of suffering.  Even with the oxygen, Saturday was a hard day.

 

Even with fewer spasms, I struggled to get a comfortable breath of air all day.  I think I would best describe it as having itchy lungs with an itch that just never goes away.  Suppressing a cough that is non productive and only hurts and injures.  The high dose of prednisone makes me swell up like a bloated pig.  On Friday that didn't happen and I credited the oxygen for that, but Saturday I thought my head and chest would burst.  I was so miserable yesterday.

Finally by about 6 pm last night I began to find some relief and things started to relax again.  I lowered my oxygen a little bit, maybe that helped... "Love is like oxygen, you get too much, you get too high, not enough and you're gonna die..."  Balance!   I took about 900 mg of Gabapentin, knocked myself out and got a pretty good, vertical, night's sleep.  This morning I feel better.  Days like yesterday make me think I am sinking, mornings like this morning make me think I can tread water a little longer.  I thank my Heavenly Father for every day I