Moving Right Along - With Bumps & Hitches

Today is December 19, but I had to look at the newspaper to remind myself. I'm sure all of you who have had to be hospitalized for a long time know how days & nights run together, and you never know what day it is. Oddly enough,I am only moderately affected by the fact that Christmas is upon us. I am so filled with such deep gratitude for this, the greatest gift that could have been given to me by another human being that it fuses in my mind with that of the Greatest Gift all of us were given by God's becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ which is what we celebrate in December. In the very early church, Christmas was not a celebration- Easter came first. And it is Easter that comes to us with its power to amaze, humble, and crush us with the knowledge of man's sin followed by the Greatest Gift that meant new life for all who would receive it. And then, in due time, we began to call attention to the actual Advent of the Word becoming flesh and the Christmas birth story. Most of all, I feel refreshingly separated from all the commercialism of Christmas. My own Christmas is going to be celebrated here, in Acuity Hospital, along with my husband and son, while all my other caregivers are home with their families. After that, I am scheduled to remain here until the 29th, at which time I feel like I will be ready to return to Beaumont and my continued recovery. And my doctors? They all wanted me to go home yesterday- I kid you not. When you look at the statistics on my chart, you see wonderfully normal numbers- the most amazing thing is that I no longer cough. If you have been around me lately, you know that I had gotten to the point where I could not begin to carry on a conversation without breaking into racking coughing, plus it invaded my nights and prevented either of us from sleeping. Despite these wonderful numbers, I have some very definite issues and problems that need to be solved, but because they are peripheral to the lung transplant, and not life-threatening, the Transplant Team doesn't think I need to be here in a hospital setting where they say that I have a bigger chance every day of contracting an infection, whether hospital borne or carried in by a visitor. There is a good argument to be made there- the last thing I need is an infection. However, the issue of my nutrition is one that I am not willing to just experiment with later on. So I will explain:

In the beginning, prior to the pulmonary fibrosis diagnosis, for about 3 years I was plagued with a cough following every single upper respiratory illness. I mentioned at the beginning about my two serious cases of double pneumonia. In reality, I've coughed after every cold forever at least for awhile. For the last year, my cough has been constant and the amount of phlegm I have ha to expectorate on a daily basis I would estimate at several tablespoons. Near to drowning, so says one of the doctors. Today, I rarely cough at all. Just now, tonight, I have had to cough a little more than usual, and it actually worried me, but my nurse said that I will continue to have the need to do that the clear my lungs and to "go for it".

I know this is unfinished and has typos, but I want to post it and will continue possibly tomorrow.

Eileen