While the drop in my lung function over the last six to eight months can certainly be resemble a stock market crash when graphed, it has been more like losing one's footing on a steep and scree-covered slope. You're going along navigating things pretty well one moment and then - zing! - you're falling down the hill at a great rate of speed, getting pretty cut up along the way, and desperately looking for something, anything, that will arrest your fall - especially since the bottom of the slope is a dropoff into death.
But there are branches to catch onto, if you know where they are and can grab at them just right. There are IV antibiotics at regular intervals, there are oral and inhaled steroids, there are bronchodilators. There's exercise and nutrition. These can all slow your fall. And to pad it - to keep from getting too banged up to survive the landing - are other devices: supplemental oxygen and ultimately that great portal to a different slope, the transplant.
I am now on oxygen. And though that needs a whole post in itself, I will say only what has been rattling through my head this afternoon about that: oxygen makes me feel strong again. I'm not as actually strong as I was this time last year, but at least I can get up out of the subway without gasping for breath or having to rest at the top. (Or worse: midway up.)
Right at this moment, I have temporarily arrested my slide. Maybe I have found myself on a narrow ledge treacherous in itself, but less deadly than the slope I've been coming down or the cliff that comes next. You see, when I went to my siblings' town for Thanksgiving, I was so wrapped up in dealing with the portable oxygen concentrator and packing IV meds (yes, I was on IVs the whole time!) that I forgot my inhaled medications.
Let me repeat that: for three days, I had NO pulmozyme, hypertonic saline, pulmocort, or aztreonam. I only happened to have albuterol in my suitcase already because as it doesn't need refrigeration, I had some extra in there. And by the time I returned to New York, my lungs felt great. Could it be the cleaner air in Greenville, SC? Could it be that giving my lungs a break from these harsh medications is what they needed? I ask because I've been back less than a week and already the tightness and the wheezing has returned. I'm tempted to DC the inhaled meds for a three day block again just to see what happens.
And what, clinically, DID happen? Well...my PFTs are up! I had a series of tests and appointments on Wednesday and in stark contrast to my recent decline, my numbers had improved substantially. My lung volume up 17 percentage points. My FEV1 up 8 percentage points. I had not thought this possible! My weight, however, is down. By a lot. I must make a very concerted effort at better nutrition, gaining weight, putting on muscle mass, etc. I am even considering making another run at going on disability, though I still think that has more against it than for it right now. But I cannot let work get in the way of taking care of myself.
Lastly, I'll note that I'm staring into a void I've long known about, but am now in a very real position to have to deal with. My team at NY Presbyterian is going to have their monthly review meeting about their patients and actually bring my name up to be put on the list this time. That may or may not happen. Had my PFTs not improved, I'd say it was a certainty. Now, maybe 65/45. Even once listed, I'll have a very low Lung Allocation Score, since I am not on oxygen 24/7, but only with exertion and while sleeping.
Even standing here on this narrow ledge, I realize I have much to do before going over the side, with or without a successful lung transplant. And the time I have left to do it in is getting so short. And if I come out the other side in good shape, I have so much MORE to do then, too!
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