Checkupdate

I figured this might be the best way to give everyone an update, especially after I heard how much exposure my previous post received.

Today I went back to Barnes for my checkup after that last appointment. It just struck me how different the two days were weather-wise. Talk about a crazy winter: last week when we went, it was snowy, wet, and cold. Today, as I type this, I am sitting on the porch basking in the sun, enjoying the 70 degree weather.

Unfortunately, I can't say that my appointments had the same extreme differences. Today I was slightly better, though not nearly as much as we'd hoped; let's call it a mostly cloudy day in the 40s as compared to last week's snow. As I said before, my numbers are usually around 45-50 when I come off of IV antibiotics. Today, I was at 35%. Yes, that's an improvement over 29, but not by much. I still haven't broke the 40s. So what does this mean?

Well, it means a few things. One, I will stay on one of my medicines for the time being. Apparently they have some patients who just stay on this medicine for life, so it is not uncommon. They want to see me in a month again, versus the normal three months, to check how things are going. I also am going to get back to exercising so I can try to get my lung functions back up that way too. My "exercising" is not really much of anything at this point, but it gets me huffin' and puffin' which is what we want.

In the 'long-term' I will probably be back in the hospital before long since I didn't get a whole lot better this time. However, when that happens, my doctor wants to hook me up with an allergist and go through the desensitization process for some of these medicines I am "allergic" to. I am "allergic" to quite a few medicines, so our choices are limited. This time, with the germs I have in my system, we could not use the best meds because I am allergic to them. Some of these allergies are old as well, so there is a chance I have outgrown them, which is why keep saying "allergic" in quotes. So anyways, in order to avoid the 'half-ass better' state I'm in right now, we are going to find out what I truly can and can't tolerate. I know this will be a bit of a pain, and probably uncomfortable at times, but I'm ready to do it. I don't want to face another hospitalization like this one again where I did so much and gained so little.

For now, though, I am considering myself no longer sick, per se. I don't know what came over me, but I am not accepting this for the long term. I know that I will get back to where I was, and hopefully even better if this exercising starts to work out a few months down the road. But in the mean time, I am at peace with where I'm at; I'm not worse, I need to keep working on it, and I guess it's just not in the cards for me right now.

I know many of you are praying for me, which literally brings tears to my eyes when I try to grapple with just how many people are thinking of me. I thank you. It means very, very much.