Well, after going back and forth with this for almost 2 years, I finally made the switch to a different medical group. Next week I’ll be seeing a Primary care physician as well as a new Pulmonologist. Both are part of the John Muir healthcare network in the eastbay town of Walnut Creek. Should I [...]
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Just a quick update on what Ive up too the last couple weeks. Lungs I’ve pretty much fully recovered from that last exacerbation and hospital stint. I think the intubation is what caused me to get so sick in the first place. An endotracheal tube is the perfect conduit for introducing bacteria and viruses deep [...]
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So in just a few hours Bib# 21619 is off to the Boston area to take another stab at the mother of all foot races. Monday morning I will attempt to finish my 3rd Boston marathon in a row and my 8th full marathon since starting this incredible fitness journey 5 years ago. May not [...]
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Had the great fortune of having lunch last week with one of my most favorite people in the whole world. Dr Wenzel was in town for the annual AAAAI convention in San Francisco and managed to squeeze in some private time with me in between her busy presentation schedule. Although we keep in close contact [...]
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You know what? I might be cursed a crappy lungs, but I sure seem to be blessed with some cool and caring friends. Case in point: After spending a pretty ugly night in the local ER, I woke up the next day to find a bunch of Facebook alerts on my phone. My talented friend [...]
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Wow, has it been an entire year already? I guess so, because I just completed my one year follow-up interview for SARP. This time it was just a phone interview. One of the researchers called me last weekend and asked me a bunch of follow-up questions. Most of the questions had to do with whether [...]
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Just got my lung biopsy report back from SARP study, are starting to paint a clearer picture of why my asthma is so severe. If there’s any good news in all this, it’s that there’s a new drug in the pipeline that could possibly help people like me who have this cellular abnormality. Dr Wenzel [...]
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(Arterial Line) Thanks everyone for your support and especially to Dr Wensel for staying in close contact during my 98th hospitalization. Thanks also to ALL the wonderful nurses who took care of me..You guys are awesome! Most of all, thank you to my dear Douglas who goes through hell every time I get sick. I’m [...]
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So after each bad asthma exacerbation or flare-up, I feel compelled to write something about the recovery phase that follows. You would think that after going through this process more than a hundred times, that I would get use to it. You learn to deal with it a little better, but you never get used [...]
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Battle scars: 4 failed arterial line attempts and 12 failed IV attempts. I have no veins left and my radial arteries are so scarred up from previous insertions, that it’s virtually impossible to get access unless they put a central line in. Very frustrating for the doctors and very painful for me. I’d been having [...]
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Before I begin, let me preface this post by saying that I haven’t made up my mind as to whether I would even want lung transplant surgery, should it ever get to that point. I wanted however, to see what some of my Pulmonologists views were on this subject, and to get a feel for [...]
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Last week after finding out just how damaged my lungs really are, the only thing going through my head was..WHY? All of the assumptions I had made about my asthma throughout the years, suddenly didn’t seem to make sense anymore. I was beginning to wonder if I really ever had asthma at all? Maybe I just [...]
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