runs off at the mouth

[Guest guest]

,

Thanks for asking about me. I have just begun week 2 of Levaquin; I am

finally feeling a small bit of improvement. The first week I sort of

cratered after 3-4 days, terrible pleuritic/pneumonia-like pain left

and right--I just took ibuprofen and laid on the couch 'til bedtime,

with breaks to clean the kitchen before my wife got home, and taking

the dog in the yard at sunset and playing fetch 'til he said we should

go in after some vigorous petting (I take that blood-pressure pet-care

advice seriously.)

This week my wife worked weekdays so I drove my daughter and a friend

to school; once I'm in the car I try to add errands--one day refueled

the car, went to a drugstore, and got furnace/AC filters at a hardware

store. I've been pretty tired since, but took daughter and friend to

school the next two days--actually got back to bed for an hour today. I

am in good spirits, but weak.

You are so right about appetite; I am eating lunch and dinner and

dessert and before-bed snacks very well; I tend to take my theophylline

with a can of generic supplement before the ride to school and want

nothing 'til after I've washed up and done Vest therapy--that's right

around noon; I'll eat again late afternoon, and again around 8pm, often

having " breakfast " --cereal and milk, yogurt, milk with protein

powder--before going to bed. It's really helped that my wife, on her

long weekends, will cook very-appealing homemade foods--cheese and

broccoli soup, chicken enchiladas. I cook some, too, having learned my

mom's recipes during a slightly extended bachelorhood.

My sputum production is up; 240mL and pretty dark. Peak flow actually

hit 510 one day some weeks back but is down to a still-respectable 450.

My lung doc wants me to go to another infectious disease doctor; I have

an appointment the end of next week (the last one was covered by

insurance while i was IN the hospital, but not when I saw him for an

office visit. Go figure--they just denied covering Pulmicort, so I'll

have to get samples from my lung doc. Maybe the new ID doc will have

ideas--I'm getting that guinea pig/lab rat feeling, like my lungs are

an interesting scientific problem, and people are forgetting that I'm

sitting on the couch while my life ticks away.

I think I said before that the CF clinic won't test me " until I'm

well, " I think they put it. Someone else's post here reminded me that

the CF drug Pulmozyme is DNase, I believe; I was one of 3000 in a

worldwide bronchiectasis DNase trial years ago; researchers agreed it

wasn't much help for our disease (I was convinced I had the placebo; in

fact, everyone got the drug.)

Well, that's too much about me; I'll run out of Levaquin two days

before my ID doc office visit. I have a couple of Cipro and three

Avelox--if I'm doing okay I may just " fast " and allow myself a

beer--it's four months or more.

SOMEBODY PULL THIS PICC LINE OUT OF MY ARM! I WANT TO GO HIT A BUCKET

OF BALLS AT THE DRIVING RANGE!

I'm sorry. I'm frustrated, that's all. Thanks for reading--I think I'm

loosened up enough to go back to writing my novel. Speaking of which,

anyone know how long chest percussion (by hand) has been around?

Long-windedly (online, anyway)

55, bronchiectasis, likely immotile cilia (low sperm motility, 3 nasal

polypectomies, deaf, corrected with cochlear implant) Arizona USA