lung

Spring 2025 and Charlotte the Lung.

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Hello, friends. This evening I’m writing to you from my office cozy with its string lights and Hershey’s cushions and blankets all over the floor, cocooned and insulated from the shivering depths of our desert valley. We’ve been having a spring cold spell with temps in the 60’s all week. Today the high was a teeth-chattering 66 degrees F, and yesterday the high was 64, which to me is a crazy Arctic blast.

I didn’t mean to be delinquent here last week! I wanted to post, but I found that I couldn’t make a decision, so I ended up walking away from my laptop.

I’ve been going back and forth trying to decide whether to keep you apprised of medical updates and such. I figure you’ve been along with me for the ride so you may want to know what’s going on, but I wasn’t sure how much I wanted this blog to be about my health – there’s been a lot of that lately. However, I did go to the pulmonologist last week, so I have updates. I finally decided to go ahead and share these and future updates with you. I promise there’ll be more to this blog than medical stuff, though!

First, a quick look at the current situation of my swelling in the aftermath of gum-graft surgery. It’s coming along! That area of my jaw is still tender to the touch on both sides, but the swelling is gradually going down, just as I was told it would. “Gradual” is right.

Evening drive – dusk – sunset. [3/29/2025]

About Charlotte the Lung, then.

Charlotte’s latest CT scan (two weeks ago) looks worse than last year’s. My partial lung collapse (atelectasis) hasn’t changed, but “mild bronchiectasis” (April 2024) is now “traction bronchiectasis” likely due to fibrosis (scarring). The scan also shows “multifocal areas of endobronchial debris or mucous plugging,” which seems to be a product of Sjögren’s Syndrome. My pulmonologist believes that Sjögren’s is complicating matters for Charlotte.

My updated pulmonary function test shows changes for the worse in a couple of areas, as well.

Because of these results, I’m now on a different medication, and we’re going to repeat the CT scan and recheck my pulmonary function in six months. Doctor said that depending on those results, he might want to perform a second bronchoscopy, and also treat my lung infection. We’ve been taking a “wait and watch” approach to the infection, since it’s low-grade and the treatment is aggressive.

Despite these disappointing test results, I’m still incredibly grateful to have lungs that work, structural abnormalities aside. I can’t hike, swim, or sing the way I used to, but I can breathe. I don’t need oxygen!

Week after next I have an appointment with my neurologist, so that week’s post will include Agatha the Brain updates.

May this post find you doing well with your health and well-being, friends. Thank you so much for reading, for still being here. It means a lot.

Until next time!

Updates on Charlotte, my moldy lung.

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Poor Charlotte. Charlotte the Lung is permanently partially collapsed. Charlotte is… moldy with a fungus.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First of all! Please do stay tuned for the tale of my haunted anniversary trip, as it is forthcoming. I have pics and everything! That was going to be today’s post, but since I went to see my pulmonologist earlier this week, I’ll go ahead and share those updates with you who’ve been following Charlotte the Lung’s ongoing (mis)adventures.

This time, I met with my own pulmonologist, Dr. M, so we could go over my bronchoscopy and Pulmonary Function Test results. (The surgeon who performed the bronchoscopy had shared his post-procedure findings and impressions, but I’m not his patient.)

This is what Dr. M told me, in order:

1). [::Walks into the room; sits down; looks at me::] “Your lung has a mold.”
It’s the fungus aspergillus. It grew in a Petri dish in the weeks following my bronchoscopy. This took me by surprise. Of all the things I thought I’d hear, “Your lung has a mold” wasn’t one of them. (Charlotte!!) Dr. M suspects that aspergillus was able to flourish in my lung because of the intermittent immunosuppressant therapy I do for Sjögren’s Syndrome. That would be Methotrexate, which I’m back on at the moment.

2). My lung will always be partially collapsed.
A larger area of collapse would require a stent, Dr. M explained, but mine is small. And it’s fine. I’ve been living with it, and I’ll continue to live with it. I mean, what else am I going to do? And really, it’s fine.

3). My Pulmonary Function Test revealed air-trapping,
which is when all of the air that’s inhaled in a breath can’t be exhaled. This a normal finding for someone with a collapsed lung. It’s common with conditions such as COPD and asthma, as well.

–The creepy web in my lung (covering the smallest airway in my Right Lower Lobe) wasn’t a birth defect, after all.
Turns out that the web was a by-product of inflammation caused by damage (collapse) and disease (aspergillus infection), basically a build up of cells. A strange, filmy sort of mass.

–The scarring in my lung
is likely the result of the aspiration event and aspiration pneumonia that started all of this, and it, too, is permanent.

Oh, Charlotte. From aspiration of a foreign object to severe aspiration pneumonia to COVID to my intermittent immunosuppressant therapy, we had, in the words of Dr. M, “a perfect storm.”

It could be so much worse. I’m grateful, thankful that this is all it is. I certainly appreciate having an in-depth understanding of why I wheeze and experience shortness of breath, have occasional difficulty taking a deep breath, why it’s harder to breathe when laying on my back, why I have a dry cough, and why I can’t get through an hour of HIIT cardio or hike at a certain altitude without using an inhaler.

I’ll have another CT scan and Pulmonary Function Test and appointment with Dr. M in six months, so we can see how things are going.

My treatment plan remains the same. I’m continuing on my two inhalers. I declined the 30-day course of anti-fungal antibiotics, opting to see whether the fungal infection will resolve itself, though Dr. M thinks that I’ve had it for a good while. I’m to let him know right away if my wheezing and shortness of breath get worse, or if I develop other symptoms.

It’s been a good week. I’ve been enjoying my reptile kid as he gears up for hibernation; job-hunting; working out; doing the usual household tasks; being a Cat Mom; playing games; watching hours of T.V. with my Favorite Person; and reading a lot. These are from today:

[10/3/2024]
Also today. Funny how it looks like I’m laying on one cushion. There are two.
Favorite Person is hilarious!!
I’m greatly enjoying the Andy Greenberg books I picked up, even though they get me riled up with fury and disbelief. Well, this one I’m currently reading, anyway. (Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers)

It’s the world we live in.

Okay, I can feel the Capricorn stirring. I’m tired. I’ll wish you all a good night and a great week ahead!

In which we celebrate my webless lung. (Charlotte’s Web revealed.)

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Why hello, friends!

With all kinds of shenanigans afoot everywhere we turn, it’s kind of a relief to slip into this space and simply regale you with the ever-so-exciting conclusion (I hope) of Charlotte the Lung’s mis/adventures.

First, here’s Yours Truly this afternoon, feeling glad to have received an overall positive report from my pulmonary surgeon when I went in earlier this week. I feel glad because Charlotte is feeling glad. If she’s not happy, then I’m not happy. Is that a normal relationship to have with one’s lung? Probably.

No webs in these lungs! [Aug. 1, 2024]

Also, State 48 REPRESENT! (Ahem.)

Now back to Charlotte: I did take pics of the surgery photos on my surgeon’s computer, as he encouraged me to do. Of course I thought of sharing them here, for anyone curious. If you’re squeamish, look away now!

To my disappointment, the creepy web wasn’t of the spidery variety. It was more like the webbing on a duck’s feet. As for WHAT it was, the surgeon isn’t 100% certain, but he’s pretty sure that it was a congenital defect – that I was born with it.

Ready? Okay, here you go:

The web stretched over the proximal opening of the lumen (medial basal segment of my right lower lobar bronchus).

And in this one, the angry red photo at the bottom shows the After:

Freshly freed of the web. After removing it, the surgeon treated the remaining tissue with cryotherapy.

My lab report was good, overall. The surgeon’s impression was “atelectasis of the right lower lobe,” which isn’t news – the atelectasis has featured in every CT scan I’ve had since last fall, including in one that wasn’t even a CT scan of my lungs. (It was a scan of my bladder, and the radiologist noted “right lower lung lobe atelectasis” because the abdomen scan captured the lower lung lobes.)

The surgeon also let me know that the enlarged submucosal glands he found in my right middle lobe are simply a normal aspect of Sjögren’s syndrome, “because Sjögren’s is a systemic disease.”

This was the best news. There’s no evidence of Sjögren’s syndrome complications in my lungs – just its hallmark signature on submucosal glands.

And this handily brings me to my next appointment in a couple of weeks, which is with my rheumatologist; she oversees my Sjögrens syndrome, as rheumatology deals with autoimmune diseases.

Finally, I will see my actual pulmonologist in January. Charlotte the lung is no longer on notice, and that’s what we like. She’ll have to undergo another bronchoscopy at that time, though, in order to check on the cryotherapy work that was done on the tissue remaining after her web was removed.

I believe this just about covers the situation. Thank you all for reading and for just being here, friends. It means a lot. Have a stupendous week ahead!

There was a creepy web growing in my lung.

That Asian-Looking Chick 2 Comments

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.

I’m leaning forward looking down at the camera with my hands resting on my thighs. It’s such a weird position, it looks like I have no neck, haha!

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!

More pulmonary adventures! (Lung updates.)

That Asian-Looking Chick Leave a comment

Hello and welcome back to my blog that seems to be all about my lung. Seriously, I’m looking forward to the day I don’t have to come here with lung updates, because that will mean that everything that needs to be known will be known, not to mention sorted. It’s been a long year and two months of this nonsense, let me tell you.

Earlier this week I met with my pulmonologist, who, after listening to my breathing, said that he wants to get into my lung to investigate with a camera. The procedure, a bronchoscopy, is scheduled for next week. I have focal RLL (right lower lobe) bronchiectasis, RLL atelectasis (he thinks that this collapse is due to my linear scarring), and relapsed childhood asthma – that last, a likely consequence of the aspiration event/pneumonia. (If I never had childhood asthma, my current asthma symptoms would be referred to as “RAD,” or post Reactive Airway Disease… a fancy way of saying that I have lingering respiratory symptoms post-pneumonia.)

There’s a possibility, says the doctor, that my Sjögren’s syndrome is involved in some of these pulmonary shenanigans. I hadn’t known that Sjögren’s syndrome can affect the lungs, so that was something nifty that I learned!

We shall see, then. On my part, there’s nothing I can be doing differently. I’m diligent about taking my medication, and I’m getting regular exercise; when I described the intense workouts that I do six days a week, the doctor said excellent, keep it up. That was good. Confirmation is good. I can keep doing what I’m doing, and next week, we should know more.

That’s it for updates! Thank you for reading, as always, friends. And take care, please.