As most of you know, I have been battling with health issues for a long, long time. Most of you have no idea what all is going on but have been keeping me in prayer anyway and I appreciate it so much. I've always been meaning to explain exactly what's going on and after the scare this weekend, realize there's no time like the present. If you don't want the graphic details, you can stop here with the diagnosis of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. If you want to continue on with me, here we go.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is basically scar tissue that is building up on my lungs. There is no cure. The prognosis is death, usually in 2-4 years from diagnosis. As the scar tissue builds up, my lungs become less able to move oxygen to my brain and other organs. Usually death comes from respiratory failure, pulmonary emboli and/or pneumonia. Currently my lungs are only working at about 40% of what they should be. So I become tired quite easily and it doesn't take much for me to become short of breath. There have been some cases of prolonging life and life quality with immuno-suppressant drugs. They are basically like chemo drugs that kill off the immune system in the hopes that it will slow the body down from trying to fight itself. I was put on Imuran two weeks ago and had a very rough time of it.

By last week, I was becoming very weak and breathing was becoming very difficult, even without any exertion. On Friday I was scheduled to get a routine blood test to see how my body is responding medically to the new medicine. When I got to the doctor's office, I was running a fever of 102 and looking like something the cat dragged in. My doc was not happy with the way I was breathing or looking so she sent me over to the hospital for blood work and a chest x-ray. She called me later that evening and told me that I had some pneumonia and she was going to start me on antibiotics right away. She also told me that if I wasn't better or got worse that I should go to the ER and be checked out.

So we filled the prescription and I took my first dose Friday night. On Saturday, I was feeling a whole lot worse but figured I'd better give the medicine some time to work. All during the day I kept debating back and forth whether I should go in, each time talking myself out of it... we can't afford it, let the medicine do its job, etc. But it hurts... well, that could be from the pneumonia. But it feels like it did when I've had a blood clot before... well it could be nothing and you'd just be wasting their time and spending money you don't have. You know how that battle in the mind goes. On Sunday, pretty much the same thing.

Oliver went to church on Sunday and when I got up, I really thought I should go in. Had he taken his cell phone with him, I would have called him and told him I was doing just that. But since it was sitting on the bathroom counter, that wasn't going to work. Quite frankly, I didn't have the strength to walk all the way into the ktichen at church to tell him so I decided I'd just wait until he got home. I didn't want him to come home and see the car and me gone. By the time he got home, I was pretty bad but he was so tired. He'd done the catering all by himself since I wasn't there to do my part. So, I thought I'd just let him rest and I went and laid down. The whole time I was laying there, I kept thinking about when my friend died a couple of years ago. She died from a pulmonary embolism.

I went through the same checklist of symptoms that I had discussed with her on the phone the day she died. All of which I was answering yes to myself. My last words to her were, if you have any of those symptoms, don't wait... the last thing you want to do is mess with a blood clot. She died later that day because she didn't go get it checked out. By the time she had her daughter call the ambulance, it was too late. So there I am, lying in bed with this little voice playing in my head - are you going to listen to your own advice? Ok. I came out to tell Oliver that we should go but he was busy making me dinner and it did smell so good. Alright, I at least can have dinner before we go. By now my fever was down to about 101 and I didn't seem quite as worried. After dinner we started watching tv. Then I took a shower and changed into my nightgown and figured I'd hold out until morning and call the doc back.

As the night wore on, I was having more and more pain in my right lung which was weird because the pneumonia was worse in my left lung and I wasn't having any real pain there, just pressure. Finally around 11:30 pm I got up to go to the bathroom and stumbled a few times on the way in there. Something was terribly wrong. Quite frankly, I was afraid that if I went to sleep, I wouldn't wake up. I was that scared. I came out and asked him (finally) to take me in to the hospital. I still wasn't sure whether to go to the local one or up to Nashville where my pulmonologist was. It came down to feeling I didn't have the strength to make it to Nashville by car so we went local. We knew that if it was bad enough, they'd life flight me to Vanderbilt. We do have life flight insurance - wouldn't live without it here in the country.

It didn't take long for them to confirm that the pneumonia wasn't getting better. Since the pain seemed to be on the other side from where the worse pneumonia was showing, the ER doc decided to do a CT scan, given my history of pulmonary emboli and sure enough, there was a small clot in my right lower lobe of my lung. They admitted me to get me started on anticoagulants to thin out my blood and at least try to stabilize my temp, etc. By early morning, the hosptal doctor was trying to get Vanderbilt to take me but they were full. Since I was stable here, it was decided to keep me here and just do a phone consult with my doc's office up there. My regular pulmonologist is out of state this week, so it was a colleague that pulled my charts and talked with the docs here. They took me off the Imuran and I feel much better that I'm not on it.

So now I'm home. I'll be on blood thinners the rest of my life and that's fine. I always knew that if I had another episode with a clot, that would happen. I need to follow up with my pulmonologist on Tuesday and I'm just praying that they don't put me back on the Imuran. This was a close call. I almost didn't make it through and reality started setting in that one of these days, I won't. Not that any of us have guarantees, but it is a heavy load to have hanging over your head. There are a lot of people who live every day with that reality and it's not a pleasant state to be in. What's a simple cold for one person can literally kill me. That being said, I also know there is the Great Healer and He is working on my behalf. Apparently He wasn't ready for me yet or I wouldn't be here writing this now.

As you know, Oliver has been out of a job since last September. Just when we thought things were starting to look up, the bottom has fallen out yet again. Oliver was supposed to start a consulting job on Tuesday to help get a local restaruant back on its feet and the owner has entered rehab and the job is out the window. His wife fired everyone and is closing down for now. So we're still at no income, my breathing and lung issues are getting worse rapidly and quite frankly, not only do we not see light at the end of the tunnel but we're not even sure what tunnel we're in anymore. Depressed? um, yeah a little. I'd be lying if I told you we weren't. I thank God everyday, though, that we have him to lean on. He has a plan, we just don't know what it is. But one thing is for sure, we don't doubt that He does. THAT is what keeps us going. All this other stuff is nuisance. We're all going to die. The reality for me is that I'm slowly heading towards a sudden death. My body is shutting down, it cannot be stopped and one day it will just cease to exist. My spirit will move on and I will be leaving people behind that I care deeply about. Scary? yeah but also in a strange way, peaceful. I know there will be an end to all these hassles and that helps me keep things in a bit better perspective.

My health insurance will run out in Decemeber. At that time, who knows what will happen. Even my meds won't be covered anymore although we're working on getting help with those. I'll lose my specialists at Vanderbilt and have to rely on doctors who don't know how to deal with IPF. In the meantime, stress makes matters worse, so I cannot allow it to stress me out or I literally can't breathe. I still have the lump in my neck to be checked out and who knows what medical mystery road that will take me down. I'm getting tired. There are days when I want to take the boatload of meds I take now, chuck them out the window and let the chips fall where they may. And yet, I'm not ready to give up fighting. I kinda like living. I've gotten a lot out of it and would like to see more days, but I would prefer more quality days, that's for sure.

So if some days I seem a little down or frustrated, please bear with me. I try not to drag anybody else down with me. I wish I could say I was going to live forever - I'm not. I struggle with pulling back from everyone I love so that when I am gone, it won't hurt them so much. Then there is the part of me that wants to grab them and hold on for dear life for as long as I have. Not one single one of us knows what tomorrow holds. Why do we spend so much time planning for it as if our lives depend upon it? Reach out and hug that person you've been wanting to. Make amends with that person you're at odds with. Life is short, no matter how long you live. That's the reality for us all.