Soooo. I went to see the surgeon again today. I noticed the lump on my back and my side are getting larger, they are somewhat sore. I seem to be coughing a bit more as well and i have some breathing issues. They want me to wear an abdominal binder. It will help compress the stuff into place and help it heal. So what the Dr is hoping is that by wearing the abdominal binder it will help hold my lung into place and allow the chest wall to heal. Since the lung is rubbing against it and sticking out its not healing.

Okay since I don’t know what part of my flu/pneumonia journey you’re up to, let’s just start from the beginning. By beginning, I think I’ll start in October when I had covid, so at the very end of September I started getting a little bit of a runny nose and I thought I had stopped taking my Allegra so I thought it was allergies and it turned out to be covid.

 I coughed pretty hard and I felt something in my stomach that hurt like hell. Fast forward to February 19th. I started getting flu-like symptoms in the late afternoon and early evening. I consulted my doctor first thing on February 20th. He did the test and I was positive for flu A. He had me on tamiflu immediately. This was going to become a month of hell! The flu was bad enough. It hurt a bit to cough while I was coughing. I would have hour long bouts of coughing or so. I was feeling a little bit better. I went back to work February 26th and 27th, but by the end of the 27th, I was noticeably going downhill. My nose is running, I’m coughing again, and it’s getting worse. On the 28th I stayed home and did nothing but cough. On March 1st, I felt good all afternoon. Yay! As evening set in, it got worse and worse and worse until sometime around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. The coughing was so bad and intense. It felt like somebody was stabbing me in the ribs, every time I coughed and that coughing bout lasted over well over 2 hours. 

The next morning my significant other was expected to be coming home so I tried to wait a little while and then finally the coughing was painful again and I went to the ER. They wound up admitting me. We thought I had pneumonia. They treated me for that from March 2nd on with me going home on the 7th. During that week on the 5th we noticed a huge bruise covering half my torso. They were giving me blood thinners because they knew I was just going to be laying around in the hospital. When you have pneumonia you can’t actually go out and play basketball or nothing you know… as it got worse, they noticed that I had a small herniation of my lung. The doctors thought that every time that I coughed the herniation was probably leaking a little blood into my torso and that’s what caused all the black and blue. 

I went home as I said and one week later I went to see the doctor for a follow-up. He took me off Oxygen and said that I was doing well. We made a follow-up appointment with the surgeon to examine the lung. That night, I was having coughing fits and wound up coughing up blood. It wasn’t really a lot so we weren’t too concerned,we thought it was just my throat. The next morning I was having more coughing fits that were lasting a couple hours at a clip and there was a lot more blood coming up. We then went to the hospital to the ER and I was readmitted Saturday to Wednesday in the hospital and they said that they could not fix the herniation. I could live with it. They said that the chest wall rebuild would be Major surgery, Go home now and rest. At this point my significant other said that my coloring wasoff. I did not look well. She felt that I really should get a second opinion and I totally agreed I couldn’t walk through one room in the house without being winded. 

We then called around and found another pulmonologist at a different hospital and went for our second opinion. This doctor saw things a little bit differently so after our appointment on Wednesday he had us go in and see the surgeon. On Friday. The surgeon found me in a hospital bed Monday. I went on Monday night. They put in a chest drain, after 24 hours we trained almost 2 liters of fluid out of my chest. It’s a lot easier to breathe now. Not perfect but a lot easier. I’ve regained color in my face. Dawn says I look much better than I did last month. I don’t think this is over yet as I still have a herniation in my lung and I do still have a small collapse in the lung and I’ll be seeing my pulmonologist on Wednesday and the surgeon again on Friday. I’ll have more news then. 

Hoping with some rest my body will start to repair itself.

So Sunday through Wednesday afternoon were mostly unremarkable, just infusion after infusion of anti-biotics, steroids, etc etc, I was overheating so they brought me a fan! Food was good, but……

I went in to get cleaned up wed afternoon and standing in front of the mirror!

I started looking a little well done! We drew lines around it to see if it grew talked to doctors etc. Didn’t seem too concerning but at the same time a cause for concern.

On Thursday it was decided to get another CatScan..

Friday, waiting to go home they sent the oxygen to my house drew more blood etc etc but this bruise is still growing. WTH is it? Finally a well known surgeon who has been with this medical center for many years came to visit me. He explained I have a herniated lung. I’ve never heard of this, yes its rare. He said I could’ve had it for many years. He sees no cause for alarm. Go home rest up feel better and we will revisit this.Whats happening though is when I cough a few drops of blood are spilled they collected inside and until the dissipate, I will look darker and darker….

Ok, so lets go home…..

With nothing better to do this frigid Sunday (March 2, 2025) I checked in. That cough was telling me something… Yup …. The flu led into, you guessed it pneumonia! Guess this is my room for the night. It’s small quaint but comfy. And with the lovely cocktail they whipped up I feel a bit better too! This was originally posted in my facebook sharing here now and ill add some updates.

Do you have an auto immune disease or many like I do? Have you thought about clinical trials?

Please go here: https://autoimmune.org/research/clinical-trials/

Read up. You may change someone’s life and it just may be your own.

As the seasons change so does the issues with psoriatic arthritis. And others as well. Please read here:  What I wrote for psoriatic arthritis

In the years since i became ill, started advocating, collecting illnesses, one thing has been consistent. Having to deal with the insurance companies.  For every illness theres a ton of different medications to treat it. Some over the counter but so many are prescription only. Then EVERY time we get prescribed a new med the first thing the insurance company does is deny coverage. It takes 2 weeks to get to try the new new med because the doctor has to rewrite the preauth a couple times before the insurance company finally approves it. THEN in that same letter they make sure that its only approved for 1 year. After which you need to redo the preauth and beg for mercy for the company to re-approve it. Why is this a thing? Once the doctor writes the prescription it should be approved immediately then you are good forever.I could see the insurance company sending you a letter saying, hey maybe we should change your medicine, please talk to your doctor. Its ok for that, as my PCP was notified they saw something in my routine blood tests and asked my doctor to run some other tests. She did and low and behold i have hemochromatosis, like gee i need another issue piled onto everything else. 

Its not ok that I have to ask every year to be approved for shots for my knees. I have to do this near year end because there is a huge copay so i make sure all out of pocket is paid. Then again the following year i will have to ask again go through the same process. For what? So i can walk without pain? I dont get it. Do you?

Hey all if you havent heard I’ve been using a new hand therapy from ReactivRehab. Heres my OT being interviewed. If you are having issues with your hands and would like an OT try this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRh78doNwZE

If you have arthritis in your hands and think the exercises are dull, boring, BLAH! they are! then try this!