Back to Colorado — Lung Story Short...

Aug 16

Aug 16 Back to Colorado

My trip to the east coast was great! Got back to Colorado last Tuesday. It was wonderful to see family and friends I have not seen since I moved in January. It was difficult trying to coordinate schedules to see everyone since I was feeling pretty crumby. I wish I could have seen everyone because it was probably the last time until I get new lungs and then after I have to wait a long time before I can fly anywhere again.

I did have an appointment the day after flying back. They wanted to see how I was doing after finishing IVs on my trip. My PFT's improved by one percent, my FEV1 was 19% last Wednesday. I did lose some weight of course, I was not surprised. I also needed to get a bunch of lab work done by the request of MNU. Since talking to them the other week about getting listed soon they wanted a crap ton of labs drawn. They sent me a package in the mail with all the tubes they wanted, and then I was supposed to send them back. The reaction of the phlebotomist in the lab was priceless when I pulled out the bag with all the tubes they wanted basically all filled pretty full. She was like "oh my, how do they expect to fill all of those from you!?! We're going to need to stick both your arms!'. MNU wanted twelve filled and then my doctor wanted three separate tubes but not all filled full. Vampires were going to feast that night! After leaving I had to rush to get to the post office to send off all the blood. It was quite the process since I had to put two tubes per little baggie into styrofoam squares into small cardboard boxes with lab sheets. I had to do six of them. Slightly time consuming when the post office is closing soon! (damn vampires want my blood over nighted!).

While being home I was paranoid about getting sick again/worse. Low and behold it happened. I felt a scratchy throat the day I flew back to Colorado. I must have picked something up a day or two before leaving... I was so pissed. The night I got back my throat was so painful I could barely sleep because it hurt so much to swallow. The next day it progressed with an annoying cough, face and head pain and then overnight it settled into my chest. This definitely happened at the worse time since three of my friends from college were coming to visit me. Jamie first on Thursday, then Emily on Saturday and Alisha on Monday.