Daily Adventures

I had a doctor's appointment this morning for my allergy and asthma, and I thought I was over my cold, but the breathing tests were really, really depressing. I'm back down to just 66% of my lung capacity even after a nebulizer with long and short-term drugs. With the asthma I've been having lately, and the cold, maybe that's the cause, and the doc took a look at me and said, "There's still an active infection going on back here, how about we give you an antibiotic?"

So I now have that, AND another asthma/lung capacity drug, and I'm oddly depressed.

I mean... I should be happy that we're addressing it, and that when I got back in two weeks, I'll probably be better off, but part of me was feeling all right, you know? And to have it brought to light that I'm really, really NOT all right just... bleh.

I should just write it off as more experience or something.

( Cut for an Ukitake rant. )

I am... uhm... officially functional, so far as my lung capacity goes. I finally went over the 70% mark today, which isn't as good as fully-functional lungs in an adult female human being my size and weight, but it is much better than I was a year and a half ago, when I started my whole allergy thing. It has the additional feature of being classified as "functional" again, which I wasn't before. Dunno if that'll be of any help with respect to insurance, but that's life. I'm still on all my meds and shots and stuff, but there's more indications that I can win back more breathing space for the long run, and the exercise is good for me anyway.

( Details of doctor stuff, finishing FMA anime, and other manga reading, including Bleach spoilers for 375. )

I've been mildly depressed lately, but I've been trying to pull out of it. Doing something about it helps...

But it's amazing, after a 90° day how much my spirits are lifted through the simple reality of a rain fall at night. Cooling the air and the house. The sound of it on the aspens is nearly as amazing as the scent of water in the air.

( Stuff I've been doing... )

So... went to my allergy and asthma doctor today for my check up and to see where I was after three months of meds, allergy shots, and trying a new exercise regimen. After the first two months of finding myself at 61% and 63% after meds, it had kind of woken me up to the possibility that I was losing lung capacity permanently. And the prospect of permanently losing a third of my lung capacity was... a bit much for me to deal with.

I even set up a reward for not just setting up, but going to my appointment. Peaches.

( About how I dare to eat a box of peaches and the really excellent results of the appointment. )

The miracle that is the modern bathroom was never so much appreciated as after four days up on a mountain with nothing but a pit toilet and one water spigot that gave only rusty, iron-tanged, but potable water. After using the sparkling clean facilities in the little Japanese restaurant and using more potable water, just washing my hands of seven layers of mosquito repellent and alcohol-based hand sanitizer, than I'd used in any single day, I felt like I'd rejoined the modern world.

( Though, I'll admit that the going away was both enjoyable and rather fraught with unexpected challanges. )

Before starting the whole allergy series, I was breathing about a 330 on the flow meter on an average. After starting the meds, I went up to 370, but then fell to an average of 350. The "normal" maximum flow for a woman my height is around 488, so I was getting around the 70% or so the doctor was talking about. I've been conscientiously upping my exercise, paying more attention to aerobics, but also throwing in hard work like at the garden.

It seems to be paying off. Today, after riding to and fro from a rather lovely sushi dinner on our bikes, I blew a 430, that's 88%. I am having ups and downs, and the ups are correlating pretty closely to when I work pretty hard. But the best thing is that my lungs didn't feel that tight when Jet and I were riding. I was still a little breathless, so I still have room to improve. That is kind of cool, so I can fight this fight. It's a good thing to know.

( Read more... )

Jet had only a half day for his Last Day of School, and John and I went to the school to picnic with him and all his classmates in the sun. We rode there on bicycles, and picnicked and played and Jet handed his Moo cards out to everyone. He has cards with his address and phone number and our names on them so that people can call and play with him if they want. A friend of ours had that idea for her kids, and it's worked out well for them, and Jet really loved passing his cards out.

( The rest of a good day. )

Okay...

The drugs didn't gain me any significant lung function. Just 3-4%. But... the pollen count is higher now than when I tested a month ago, too. But that's kind of a false hope. The doctor says I've pretty much probably lost function, but there's a chance that if I stay on the meds, now that I can actually breathe and do exercise things, that if I take advantage of that and do a lot more exercise that I might regain at least some function.

Which is what I have been longing to do. So I gardened tonight, and planted zucchini after working in compost, and I wasn't too breathless even after all the digging, which was good. Saturday is going to be a big planting day at the OUR center, so it should be fun.

The ironic thing is that I now, basically, have been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Which is exactly what I gave Ukitake Jyuushiro after the active TB infection was burnt out of him. His has pockets of disease damaged lung tissue, still, which is why he coughs blood. I only have nonfunctional, perhaps compacted tissue. And I had a friend who died, last year, of just pulmonary fibrosis... he gradually just kept losing lung function as more and more of his lungs solidified after a very long fight. He got a lung transplant, and that helped for a couple of years, but eventually went the same way.

So it's a rather a lot more than just my allergy asthma, and there's a reason why my lungs still feel tight even when I'm on all the meds and the allergy shots. The cool thing was realizing that all my allergic reactions have actually gotten much better, probably because of the shots. I'm not sneezing or tearing up nearly the way my boys are. So... there's one good thing about the shots.

But on the amusing side of irony... something I wrote in Twin Souls seems to have actually become canon in the backstory arc. XDD r0ck3tsci3ntist and incandescens both pointed it out to me. That amuses me greatly.

Hmm...

Good thing with my meds: I can breathe. When I take everything on a strict schedule I almost feel like myself again. I rode a couple miles on my bike with the boys to Noodles and Company and while my lungs felt tight, they worked the whole trip. Jet pedaled away on the back of the three-wheeler and complained about how heavy I was on the hills. But I did just fine. I gardened a couple of days ago and got the tomatoes out into the garden, and I should probably get the zucchini and other stuff out, too.

So those are good.

( The more interesting side to the meds... and, yes, that is a Chinese curse... )

Got to see the asthma/allergy folks today. They now have me on three meds plus my emergency med and whoooieee, I'm breathing!

And exertion isn't pushing me into scary shortness of breath. I couldn't do the allergy shot today because my reaction scared the nurses badly enough they're consulting with the doctor again on Thursday.

Thing is... my inner adrenaline junkie, now fed on various adaptations of... well... adrenaline and steroids, is occasionally jumping into my brain and going, "Oh oh oh oh come on, Come On, COME ON. Why the F-- are you GOING SO SLOW!!!"

Ahem.

I am now very glad that I did not buy the Z3 M roadster or even the other M series cars I was looking at while in the midst of my upper management high a few years ago. I am glad I did not take up a friend's offer on a good deal on an AMG series Mercedes. I am even more glad I do not have a Tesla or a motorcycle.

Because it makes the temptation mostly moot. Even as it was I was forcibly taking my foot off the accelerator of the Passat as I would just blow by everyone from the stop lights.

I now understand Jyuushiro's calm control just a little more. *laughter*