Thursday, September 04, 2008

*Slight* Turbulance

Along the, for the most part, smooth life post transplant, on occasion bumps will be hit. A depressed immune system combined with a history of CF and transplanted lungs sometimes means little glitches arise.

I went to clinic yesterday where my lung functions were 99.6% (a personal best for me), a good x-ray was reported and all things look good. Except that I have some sort of chest infection as evidence by the 'not so nice' stuff I have been coughing up for a few weeks now. (Symptoms for the medical peoples= "green") Plus I've noticed I can't laugh or scream without coughing first.

But everything else looks super which is a great sign. However we agreed that there's no point in waiting until something serious comes up regarding this infection and so considering the smarties tablets (ciproxin) failed to have any effect recently the next step is I.V.s.

I will go into hospital tomorrow morning at silly o'clock and have a PICC line placed and begin as soon as I can. I will spend a couple of nights in hospital itself and hope to continue/finish the course at home early next week. It was my decision to go into hospital as I found the last course incredibly draining as each set of IVs takes 2 hours and must be done every 8 hours. This requires early starts and way too late finishes - ignoring the tiring effects IVs have on the body.

Although I was rather frustrated by the whole situation yesterday, I realise that, in reality, it's not so bad. The timing is just perfect (as I'm not working and college doesn't start until next week) and having IVs again just means I'm fuelled up and ready to hit the ground running when the course is completed. Two years ago I couldn't even run. Not that I can now, but the potential *is* there if I wasn't so self conscious about sounding like a clumping elephant on a treadmill in the gym. That's for another day....