Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I skipped using the "flutter valve" to clear gunk out of my lungs Sunday morning and evening, and Monday morning; I think that's the longest I've skipped since I started using it. Before this, I skipped a few mornings to avoid coughing too much while at the neurologist or dentist's office, then used the device after dinner on those days.

rysmiel asked me in email whether I'm satisfied with the degree to which it is helping overall, and I think so, but it's hard to be sure. I was coughing enough during the day Monday that I used my albuterol inhaler twice, by itself rather than as part of the Mucinex-inhaler-flutter valve process, which is suggestive but not a lot of data.

My current plan is to skip the mornings while traveling to and at Scintillation next month, and likely skip the evenings as well, rather than sit up annoyingly late until I have stopped coughing again, which I would much rather be sitting or standing for rather than lying down.

I had the pulmonary function test, and then the follow-up appointment with the pulmonologist.

The PFT was annoying and uncomfortable, in part because I had a lot of trouble breathing in and out smoothly, while only through my mouth. fAfter I tried that for a while, with three different mouthpieces, we gave up and went to the next test. Somewhere in there I muttered that it shouldn't be possible for me to fail a medical/lab test. For the second test, the technician had me put the mouthpiece in my mouth again, gave me (extra) oxygen through the mouthpice, and measured my breathing. Test three was using my albuterol inhaler, waiting ten minutees, and redoing the first set of measurements, and it was significantly easier after the inhaler.

They sent those results to the doctor, and I went upstairs to her office. Based on the PFT, there is definitely some obstruction in the lungs. The albuterol improved the results by significantly more than for the average person.

I do not have the weird infection (Mycobacterium avium complex) that they were culturing for, nor any other infection beyond the staph aureus that she treated with an antibiotic in January. Dr. Koster was going over this morning's results and what they mean, and I had to ask about that culture, which I guess means that yes it was that boring. She referred to it as "testing negative for tuberculosis," a word she was carefully avoiding at the first visit (most people wouldn't recognized the name "mycobacterium"), but "we are sure you don't have TB" isn't going to worry people the way anything that sounds like "possible TB, we'll known in three months" might.

The doctor suggested restarting the steroid inhaler, but when I said I didn't want to because of the increased risk of lung infections, she didn't try to persuade me. I have a follow-up appointment in three months, but if I'm feeling the same or better than I am now, we will reschedule that for September.

Also, I should wait longer between using the inhaler and using the flutter valve, for better results.

I asked about the neurologist's recommendation of a sleep study, and the pulmonologist said that she can't put that through without any relevant symptoms, just a comorbidity. cattitude was in the room with me, and confirmed that I am not snoring, and do not sound as though I'm having trouble breathing, only coughing, so no sleep study.

Cattitude, who came along to keep me company, and I stopped in the hospital cafeteria for lunch afterwards, and ate our lunch on a bench outside the hospital. I had roast squash and roast potatoes, those being what looked appealing. We stopped at Lizzy's on the way home, because I felt like I deserved ice cream after all that.

I have gone to Mt. Auburn three days in a row to give them sputum samples, which they will test to figure out whether I have an obscure infection. Now I can wait 8-12 weeks for those results. I was briefly alarmed by an automated MyChart message with results from the first day's sample, just because I wasn't expecting to have any results this soon. But I called the doctor's office, and they confirmed that it's normal to run those tests before trying to culture the same.

That does mean that they got a usable sample on Wednesday, which both I and the techician had been unsure of.

Also, that's three days in a row of going out and about, and standing around in the cold waiting for transit, so I'm probably going to stay close to home tomorrow.

This was with a different tech than yesterday and the day before, and he switched from a medical mask to a better mask before having me sit down and start breathing the nebulized salt water. (The other tech did so on her own Wednesday, but argued with me before putting on a good mask yesterday.)

I have been coughing a lot in the last couple of days, enough so that more than once adrian_turtle has heard me coughing and asked if I need the inhaler, when the answer is things like "I used it ten minutes ago" or "not for another couple of hours."

I slept well last night, but woke myself up coughing Monday and Tuesday nights. If Carmen hadn't listened to my lungs a few weeks ago, I'd be calling and asking for an in-person appointment for when she gets back next week.

I just mentioned this in email to rysmiel, and I want it somewhere I have a better chance of finding it again.

I have (optimistically) bought airline tickets for a trip to Montreal at the beginning of September. Canada plans to let fully vaccinated Americans, like me, enter the country for non-essential reasons starting on August 9, and it's been much too long since I've seen rysmiel. I will probably do a little tourist stuff, or just wander around the city, while rysmiel is working, but the main point is to spend time together.

Air Canada is waiving change fees for any flight changes made by the end of August, and for one change made after then if the ticket was bought by 31. Yesterday, I was finding this reassuring mostly because of my annoyingly persistent cough; this evening, I'm wondering whether the border will actually be open, and whether it will seem prudent for me to make this trip if it is.

I am on day 2 of the antibiotics, and am coughing significantly less than before I started them, which is absolutely a good thing.

I called my dentist's office this afternoon and left a message asking them to call because I want to reschedule, because a cough and a dental cleaning don't seem like a good combination. The appointment is next Wednesday, and I hope I won't be coughing by then, but hope isn't the same as knowledge.

I spent last night at adrian_turtle's, the first time I'd been there in over a month, because of this damned cough, and because she was also sick in early June. We both had a good time, but I was coughing a lot last night and didn't sleep well. I coughed enough to wake myself up at 4 a.m., so I got out of bed and used the albuterol inhaler.

It was cool enough today that I stopped at Lizzy's on the way home and bought two pints of ice cream--but warm enough that I also bought a small dish of chocolate ice cream and ate it sitting outside the shop.