They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said – oh wait, I did that one already, didn’t I? 
First day back at pulmonary rehab! And boy, am I weak. I wasn’t even able to manage the level of activity that I did during my first week there, much less what I was doing immediately prior to being hospitalized. It makes sense, seeing as I haven’t been terribly active during the last month, but I still have a lot of ground to make up.
By the end of last week I FINALLY saw some progress on my hand-held peak flow meter, and was also coughing up less mucus. Since I finally started making progress, we decided to do one more week of IV antibiotics and fluids. I have another follow up on Wednesday, and I expect to be done with IVs either then or Thurs. This has been a long haul, the longest I’ve been on IVs in quite some time, and I am very much looking forward to freedom and being able to sleep in as long as my body wants instead of waking up to run infusions!
My throat is still scratchy and sore from lingering viral symptoms, and this cold dry air definitely isn’t helping. Lately I’ve been hunkering down in my room with the humidifier running full blast, trying not to talk, as well as having lots of hot drinks (preferably hot chocolate!) with honey in hopes that things will finally heal and I’ll get my voice back. Things do seem to be slowly improving, so here’s hoping I may actually be able to manage conversations without pain soon.
One unhappy complication is that a week and a half ago we had to stop one of my antibiotics, Tobramycin, because I started noticing a mild ringing in my ears. I also feel pressure inside my ears, as if my head is stuffed up. Tobramycin can cause hearing loss, and those are some of the symptoms, so we stopped it immediately. Unfortunately, a week and a half later symptoms haven’t improved, and it’s unclear whether they will. It’s also hard to tell how much is Tobra and how much is my terrible sinuses being their usual terrible selves, so this may have been creeping up on me unnoticed for a while. Thankfully the symptoms are pretty mild and I can mostly ignore them.
My latest party trick is that I learned how to de-access the port by myself. They change the needle weekly, so this morning before the nurse came out I de-accessed the port and took a wonderful IV free shower. I’ll be able to do that from now on whenever I’m on IVs, which is a nice benefit that the port has over the PICC lines I was getting before. It never ceases to amaze me how therapeutic a hot shower can be!
I’m very grateful that things are FINALLY heading in the right direction. Onwards and upwards!
First day back at pulmonary rehab! And boy, am I weak. I wasn’t even able to manage the level of activity that I did during my first week there, much less what I was doing immediately prior to being hospitalized. It makes sense, seeing as I haven’t been terribly active during the last month, but I still have a lot of ground to make up.
By the end of last week I FINALLY saw some progress on my hand-held peak flow meter, and was also coughing up less mucus. Since I finally started making progress, we decided to do one more week of IV antibiotics and fluids. I have another follow up on Wednesday, and I expect to be done with IVs either then or Thurs. This has been a long haul, the longest I’ve been on IVs in quite some time, and I am very much looking forward to freedom and being able to sleep in as long as my body wants instead of waking up to run infusions!
My throat is still scratchy and sore from lingering viral symptoms, and this cold dry air definitely isn’t helping. Lately I’ve been hunkering down in my room with the humidifier running full blast, trying not to talk, as well as having lots of hot drinks (preferably hot chocolate!) with honey in hopes that things will finally heal and I’ll get my voice back. Things do seem to be slowly improving, so here’s hoping I may actually be able to manage conversations without pain soon.
One unhappy complication is that a week and a half ago we had to stop one of my antibiotics, Tobramycin, because I started noticing a mild ringing in my ears. I also feel pressure inside my ears, as if my head is stuffed up. Tobramycin can cause hearing loss, and those are some of the symptoms, so we stopped it immediately. Unfortunately, a week and a half later symptoms haven’t improved, and it’s unclear whether they will. It’s also hard to tell how much is Tobra and how much is my terrible sinuses being their usual terrible selves, so this may have been creeping up on me unnoticed for a while. Thankfully the symptoms are pretty mild and I can mostly ignore them.
My latest party trick is that I learned how to de-access the port by myself. They change the needle weekly, so this morning before the nurse came out I de-accessed the port and took a wonderful IV free shower. I’ll be able to do that from now on whenever I’m on IVs, which is a nice benefit that the port has over the PICC lines I was getting before. It never ceases to amaze me how therapeutic a hot shower can be!
I’m very grateful that things are FINALLY heading in the right direction. Onwards and upwards!
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