Health Update:
This spring has been a mirror of last spring, which was a season of allergy issues for me, or so I thought. As it turns out I'm partly right, and partly wrong. I've always had allergies, but they manifest themselves differently for me in different climates (like with most people). My ragweed allergy was always bad in the fall in Minnesota, but essentially none-existent in Arizona. However my normally noticeable pollen allergy in the spring in Minnesota was amplified and present almost year-round in Arizona. This is because except for a few short weeks where there's some weather in the 30's in the evenings. Every other bit of time the cactus are blooming and those pollen-laden blooms are floating in very fine particles in the very dry air.
But as it turns out, I've learned that a not uncommon problem for post bone-marrow and stem-cell transplant patients is the potential for chronic bronchial issues, and as it turns out humidity is a massive trigger for bronchitis. So spring hits in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, and humidity is not very far behind, which then tends to last through mid-August or so. Meanwhile, in Arizona, except for a very narrow few weeks in August, during monsoon season, there is almost never any humidity. I remember having a strange respiratory episode during that time almost a year after my transplant. I'd feel fine sitting, then when I stood up it felt like a weight had just shrugged down from my jaw along my throat to my chest, which in retrospect I now realize was probably caused by the inflammation of my bronchial passages. I've experienced that at least three times in the last two years in Minnesota, though, and am only now figuring out the connection.
So we had a long winter and a delayed spring. We run the humidifier in the winter to moisten the overly dry air a bit, and the dehumidifier in the spring/summer to take the excess water out of the air. It was only about a week ago when the dehumidifier began collecting water, but when the change hit, it was drastic. We can collect about 2-3 gallons of water in one day. That's a lot of humidity! And last week what had simply been a bit irritating before (the tightness I sometimes get beneath my jaw running down my throat, went into a full-blown respiratory thing that finally, after a week of living with what I simply thought was a chest cold, sent me to the ER - on Friday the 13th, ironically. I was getting so short of breath and light-headed when standing, and coughing all night and getting no sleep, that I spent as much time as possible sitting, which is when those symptoms didn't bother me as much. As someone who writes a lot, it's easy to get into this rhythm, because it works both sides of things, but it also masked some of the bigger picture for me until late last week. I did get a lot of writing done, though! (more on that later).
The two nights preceding my ER visit was full of such strong coughs all night long (when the humidity tends to be higher here) that I felt like I was developing a hernia in my lower belly. It looks like it's hopefully just a strained muscle, but I still have to hold it tight every time I cough still. Anyway, the few things they did in the EW made me feel immediately better, especially the nebulizer treatment, which is about 1000x more effective than a simple inhalant of Albuterol. It only takes a few minutes, but it really opens your airways up fast! They did a chest X-ray and saw no signs of pneumonia, so yay!
The rest of the protocol was much like last fall treatment:
1. A 5-day course of Prednezone (a steroid that reduces inflammation in lung and bronchial tissue)
2. Add back in the Flonaise nasal spray twice a day (a topical steroid that dries up those passages).
3. Add back in Albuterol up to 3x daily as needed.
4. Try to keep the humidity low, and don't do strenuous things outside when/where there's high humidity.
5. Codeine cough syrup to help suppress the cough enough to get a good night's rest.
6. Use the spirometer to slowly rebuild lung power as tissue inflammation comes down.
7. Daily nasal irrigation to clean out contaminated mucus in your nasal and sinus passages (so simple and yet so effective!)
7. Daily nasal irrigation to clean out contaminated mucus in your nasal and sinus passages (so simple and yet so effective!)
And their follow up advice is go see my primary care doc, and watch out for these symptoms to start the simple treatments above early, and thus not let it get as far as I did. So I'm going to review that with him on Friday.
Long story short, I've really fallen off the exercise wagon because I haven't felt my lung power was up to the task. Luckily I've stayed the same weight wise, so I'm holding at 17 pounds lost. As soon as I get this under control (and keep it under control!) I'm starting up again.
But even preceding this spring's bronchial issues for me, I was dealing my mother's health. She has also had respiratory issues since moving to Minnesota, although with her they almost always take place in the winter. Well, I think I finally got a handle on that as well. Her situation starts out with shortness of breath followed by overall weakness upon standing, which then gets more and more severe. In May she could barely take a few steps without assistance, and she is normally a very active, physically fit person. We had a family event at a friend's business opening and it was really apparent the difficulty she was having. I must have been thinking about it in my sleep, because I woke up early and absolutely knew that she was suffering from dehydration.
Now the thing is, I've figured this out before, but always after the fact, and often forgotten by the time another episode comes along. Here's a few things you should know about my mother: She smokes like a fiend (although I have mostly weaned her off tar-filled cigarettes and onto e-cigarettes, where I have been stealthily reducing the nicotine level over the past year) and she eats like a bird. Her favorite daily diet consists of Pepsi, and picking at food, coffee and - wait for it - Bailey's Irish cream in the morning. The Bailey's is necessary because she doesn't really like coffee! Well, obviously the truth is she simply likes Baileys. But water is definitely something she does not like. Weird.
So I ran out to the store very early and got bananas, Gatorade, and V8 Juice and cut off her coffee and baileys. I literally had to insist she eat half a banana a day and augment her Pepsi with Gatorade and V8 if she couldn't force herself to drink water. I also replaced the coffee with hot boullion. Within 1 day the change was noticeable, within 3 days she felt like a different person, and now she says she feels 10 years younger. It's amazing that simply not keeping your electrolytes in balance can have such a huge impact on your state of well-being. Anyway now we know how to keep her on her feet - bananas and boullion! And as it turns out, for someone who very much doesn't like to move out of her comfort box (which entails the things she did in her youth, and not much outside it) she's found that she actually likes Gatorade, so yay! She doesn't miss the coffee and bailey's now that she can have some other sort of hot drink, so it's been positive on all fronts.
Okay, I'm going to cut this post short now, and try to get another one in after my doc's visit on Friday, as I'm also following up on some other paths that are related. I hope everyone out there is doing well!
Teri
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