The month that was... this month

Sorry for the appauling absence of blogging this month. I'll try harder!
Firstly, the good news, is that I am doing okayish at the moment, and that a few weeks back I managed nearly 30 minutes of non stop running on 6 lpm o2, at a speed of 6.5mph. Which was very encouraging indeed! So much so infact, that I've entered a cancer research UK 10k! Brilliant to do as well since my Mum is recovering from breast cancer, and has got really good care which is probably down to research and funding in to new treatments.

It's September the 13th, this 10k, and since it's hilly I'm aiming to run at least half of it, and walk when I need to. I'll have very kind running friends run with me to help with the 02, so we'll be a right motley crew.

Then fast forward to Friday 19th. I had a brilliant clinic appointment and shuttle walk test showing a MAHOOOOsive increase in my lung functions and x-ray looking great. I didn't desaturate at all walking very slowly, only a little bit at a normal pace, and then low 80's once brisk-jog pace. So considering that's on room air, not bad at all, and means that I need about half the amount of 02 to exercise than a few months back!

Unfortunately, having practically punched the air with chuffedness on friday, I could only throw my hands up in disbelief when I got a temperature of 38.2 on Saturday and then 39.5 on Sunday. Since my chest felt clear and my only complaint was feeling perhaps slightly more breathless (which you can get with fevers anyway), I would have been happy to try and keep it down with paracetamol and wait and see. And My consultant also said she was happy either way, but to be sensible... and by the end of Sunday, it appeared not so sensible to leave it as it wasn't staying down at all.
Poor Dad had to drive me up to LCH that evening to be admitted. I wasn't feeling awful but my temp was still 39 and my heart was really pounding with it, so we Started up some Iv antibiotics and fluids for Sunday night.
My temperature carried on being a complete pain in the buttock all week, still spiking up high and my chest x-ray looked a bit worse again, so I had a bronchoscopy (was heavily sedated this time lol) and we agreed that if it showed nothing and I was still the same, then we should do that open lung biopsy. This time I could kind of see that it was the only way to be sure of an organising pneumonia and not something that hasn't shown up elsewhere.
Surprise surprise, the bronch shed no light on the matter, so Monday I was carted off down to theatre and basically they cut in to your lung and take a bit out to have a good look at it and do loads of tests on it, then stitch it back together and you have a chest drain to keep the lung inflated while it mends. So an exciting few days on the High Dependancy Unit... I don't remember much of the first day and mostly slept although apparently made the staff run about a bit with my breathing straight after surgery. Probably down to asthma, but they had to put the breathing tube back in again lol... The next day I was up and able to walking around a bit with the physio and all my stands and pumps and general paraphenalia. And then yesterday, out came the pump, lung stayed up very nicely and up I popped back to CFU.
The very early initial results have shown some sort of fungal problem although it's not definate, but I've been started on Voriconazole anyway. I've also been on my old friend, hydrocortisone IV since monday. 300mg a day. Look like a hamster. Weigh 46 kg now compared to 41 on Monday. Make it stop!!
I'm still feeling a bit shattered probably because I'm taking stronger painkillers and they do knock you out if you aren't used to them... but in terms of pain it's not that bad today. Just a bit tweaky and strained if I'm in certain positions. I thought that the incision would be smaller so I was quite surprised to see a 2-3 inch scar across my back. It seems to be just low enough that most tops would cover it though!

I'll do a bit more updating later when I might know a bit more too. Will probably sleep alot again... yawn. xxx