pulmonary health

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.