My right lung has become such a featured character in this blog that I finally decided to name her. “Charlotte.”

Plot twist: It’s looking increasingly like my lung issues don’t have much to do – directly – with inhaling that vitamin, or with the aspiration pneumonia that followed. It’s more like the aspiration event triggered a process, or pointed to pre-existing issues. More on this later, one way or the other.

For now, if you’re interested in my ongoing pulmonary adventures, read on!

I had my bronchoscopy done at the hospital earlier this week. It turned into a surgery. I named my lung “Charlotte” because she’d spun a web, which the surgeon found when he got in there with the camera. Surprise!

This strikes me as creepy, and not in a good way. Not in a spooky dark aesthetic spider web motif way, which I adore. More like in a space horror situation way. An Alien kind of way.

Anyway, the surgeon cut the webbing and removed it to be sent to the lab for testing, then treated the remainder of the tissue with cryotherapy, smoothing it down around the edges. The lab will tell us whether there was an egg sac with baby aliens incubating in my lung, waiting to burst out of my chest. I see you, Charlotte.

The web wasn’t Charlotte’s only party trick, though. In addition to that and the chronic scarring and atelectasis (collapse) that we’ve known about from the CT scans, there are festivities going on up in my right middle lobe: a lesion and some enlarged submucosal glands. The surgeon used cryobiopsy to take samples from each of those.

In addition to the biopsies, he performed a lavage (BAL) in the lower lobe, meaning he filled the lung lobe with fluid and immediately suctioned it back out to be sent to the lab for analysis.

All of this is in my right lung. CHARLOTTE. My left lung is completely normal. My left lung does not get a name. (As dubious an honor that may be.)

Something else interesting that the surgeon discovered is that the medial-basal section of my right lower lung lobe is abnormally small and narrow, almost as if it never really developed. He said that this looks like a congenital (birth) defect.

That about sums it up, friends. All of the information above is detailed in a much lengthier account written by the surgeon, which I accessed in my online medical portal.

There’s nothing much else to report. The next day, I went back to the hospital for a pulmonary function test. [::shrugs:]

It’s been a rough few days of recovery, but I’m on the other side now, and all is well. I haven’t worked out since Monday; the post-anesthesia pain and stiffness were more intense than I’d anticipated. I felt like I’d been banged up in a car accident from my waist up to my jaw! My throat and jaw are still a little sore, though I was only intubated for an hour. I still ache around my rib cage. It isn’t a whole lot of fun laughing and coughing. Overall, though, I’m feeling much better.

Next steps! In two weeks I’ll meet with the surgeon to review the lab findings, and he wants to go back into my lung in three months to make sure that the edges of the remainder of the web are still smooth. If they aren’t, he’ll smooth them down again using the same cryotherapy technique.

I’m looking forward to the lab results. I’m hoping for answers, a plan, and a different medication, because the Wixela isn’t exactly helping these days. (The Albuterol works, in the moment, thankfully, so that one’s good.)

I’m loving this worn out old skele-tee with its rib cage. I’ve had it for decades. It’s comfy and apt, and I’m glad it didn’t make its way into a Goodwill pile.

In other news, we’re going to see Longlegs tomorrow, and I’m so excited!! I’ve been waiting for this film since January.

Have fun doing whatever you’re doing that’s a good time!