My Medical Week

Okay, so I have NO excuse for not posting Tuesday.  But Wednesday we left the house at 9:20 to go drop our van off for service, then it was lunch and to the hospital for plasmapheresis.

Jacob had to go with us because he seemed to have had a little cold, and I wasn't taking ANY chances with my dad's health (or my mom's...) and I have to tell you.  He was PERFECT.  All the nurses loved him, and he was just amazing.  He sat so nice and drew like 6 or 7 pictures for the "girls" (nurses).

He was polite and used good grammar and good manners and made me the proudest Momma I could ever be!  It was everything you prayed for and nothing you imagined! LOL  Seriously....my child is BUSY.  And he is LOUD.  And I love him for that.  So, I imagined that he would be tearing up and down the halls of the short stay unit terrorizing patients who had just gone under the knife.

But no.  My angelic, rosy cheeked child sat and colored, and drew, and made several trips around the corner to visit the aquarium in the surgical waiting area. :)  He was SO perfect.

Pheresis was okay on Wednesday but SLOW.  I only ran 80, so it took OVER 2 hours.  UG.

Thursday was spent recuperating, and Friday was another long day.  Only THIS time, my friend Shawn's son Rick was available to watch Jacob.  YAY!!!  I knew I couldn't expect him to be SO good again all day long.  This time we still left about 9:20, but first I had a pulmonology appointment, and THEN pheresis.  (Got all the way up to 95 on Friday's treatment! Woo-Hoo!!)

Yesterday was another day of recuperating.  Today I'm doing pretty well, especially since Doug let me sleep in. (Love you honey!)  OH, wait...he doesn't read my blog.  Oh well.

SO.  Back to pulmonology.  I have the best doctor.  If you live locally, and you ever need a pulmonologist, see Dr. David Shen at St. Mary's.  He's awesome.  He's super knowledgeable, but he also takes the time to REALLY listen to YOU, the patient.  He trusts that I know me better than he knows me, and I appreciate that SO much.  He's also very thoughtful...like he really thinks about every angle of what we can do to solve a particular problem.

In this case, it's the problem of the coughing-up-of-blood-from-the-lungs.  I had taken pictures of my suction machine (don't worry, I won't post them) with the amount of blood I had been coughing up as well as the time frame in which said coughing occurred.  He was....impressed.  Not in a good way.  Although he thought it was good I took the pictures. Go me!

So here's our plan:  I have a CT scan on Friday to rule out any "big" problems...masses, etc.  This is NOT a likely reason that this is happening, but I had a CT a year ago kind of for the same thing, so this will be a good indicator if the health of my lungs has changed drastically in the last year.  I would say it has not.

Then, he gave me 3 sputum (SUCH a gross word if you ask me) culture bottles, so that IF I start coughing up copious amounts of the red stuff again, I can hack into the cup and bring it to the hospital with the order he wrote to test for bugs (the germy kind, not the 6-legged kind).  I have 3 bottles so that I can do this 3 days in a row, and they'll test all 3 samples.

PLUS he gave me a prescription for Cipro, the ONLY antibiotic I know I can take, to have on hand in case I get really sick on a weekend, or say, if we are out of town or whatever and get really sick (lung-wise) I know I can get this filled and not worry.

So I would say our bases are covered.  He is awesome, is he not??

I was SO devastated when Dr. Lovy left.  And don't get me wrong...he is missed.  But if anyone had to replace him, I sure am glad it was Dr. Shen. :)  God is good!