Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Recovery Update


So far, so good, though it's a rougher course this time.

Antibiotics are working, as they have in the past, but the course of recovery is not as smooth as I might like. No sign of blood in the lungs has shown up since I went to the ER, but nothing at all has come up since then, either. UPDATE (02/09/11, 11:00am): A small amount of blood has just come up. Sigh. The TB skin test is negative. I'll do outpatient follow up with doctor on Friday, a few days before the antibiotics run out.

Thinking back, I'm pretty sure how I got pneumonia in the first place: aspirating stomach contents. When it happened, I convinced myself that I hadn't breathed in what had been coming up, but I was wrong. It was a very strange experience to say the least. Anyway, the first attempt at recovery seemed to work, but the pneumonia came back, worse than before, and now I'm going through another course of antibiotics.

There may be some other issues as well. I haven't discussed it with doctors, but I should. For about 2½ years, maybe three, I was working in an asbestos saturated environment -- unbeknownst to me at the time. I breathed in asbestos dust every day, sometimes quite a lot of it, and only years later did I find out what I was breathing and how dangerous it was. I haven't smoked for about fifteen years, but I smoked heavily before that. So that may be a contributing factor (I have discussed my previous smoking habit with physicians.)

First things first: take care of the pneumonia (please!), then deal with the potential other problems.

1 comment:

  1. Have been watching this closely. Do hope you feel better soon. Yeah, you pretty much have to have that asbestos conversation with your doc... though I know it can be hard to recall that kind of stuff when you're at, say, an ER where you've been held "hostage" for hours on end and you're only thought is How the hell do I get out of here.

    May it all resolve very soon for you and as unremarkably as possible.

    ~ bystander

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