Backtracking: February 25th-March 8th

I finally got a bed on Friday (the 25th) and was started on my dream-team med combo (Meropenum and Chloramphenicol), the very combo that saved my lungs from being permantly fired in 2009. Within 24 hours I felt great, my voice had returned in full-strength and my shortness of breath had lessened... I hopped on the exercise bike daily and didn't require oxygen--my levels, oddly, were fine. However, we later did decide that 1 L of oxygen would be helpful, since my heart rate shot up to 160, and it was very possible my heart was overcompensating for my weak lungs (thank you overachieving heart, remind me to reward you later by avoiding all trans fats). My main problem, upon this admission, was the inability to clear mucus (which, let's face it, is a lingering issue), all the physio in the world cannot get the stuff moving, which makes it difficult to clear infection despite strong antibiotics, if you can't cough it out... then you have a problem.

With this challenge looming, I tried a different technique called autogenic drainage, which is basically a fancy term for a breathing exercise that targets different areas of the lungs--it's also a fancy term for the hardest thing ever! The required 'shallow' breaths were very challenging for me, I felt like I was suffocating... so I vowed to work on it (and did!) but mostly reverted back to my darth vader/pep mask (description of physios can be found here). CPT, unfortunely, did nothing my spasm up my airways more, so we opted to stick with what 'worked' and brought up tiny amounts of phlegm. Never one to give up, I also purchased a pari pep from pharmacy, which can be attached to your nebulizer, so I was doing double-time physio... it semi-worked...

By the end of the week, we (I seem to include myself as part of the medical team) decided that I should bite the bullet and inhale my Hypertonic Saline twice a day to see if that would help--Hypertonic Saline is exactly how it sounds, 5% salt water, inhaled. It's a torturous session, which usually helps me loads, but this time around all it seemed to do was stir things up in the morning, make me uncomfortable all day--then suddenly start moving by my second physio and nebulizing session later in the day.

(I realize I just filled these past two paragraphs with a lot of CF-exclusive lingo and for that I apologize, but I'm really just documenting this for my own records.)

8 days into my admission things seemed to be looking up, I was going out nightly (for dinners with family and friends), working out on the bike, my exertion headaches (from walking quickly or biking) had vanished, 02 levels were the highest they'd been in over 2 years (96% like all your normies!), appetite was good, WBC was 14 (which I would have liked to seen lower), and everything seemed to be under control. In fact, my pfts on March 8th, were .82 (28%), which was the highest they had been since the summer--and it was exactly what I was aiming for! That night we went out to celebrate my Dad's Birthday and my impending release. I remember commenting about how great I felt and that I never realized I was so sick for all those months; now I truely felt what good was supposed to feel like.

The following day there was even talk of sending me home after 10 short day of antibiotics, but something in my gut told me to wait the full 14... and boy, am I glad I listened to my oh-so-intelligent gut.