Things were up and down last month. A couple weeks into the month, it seemed like things took a turn for the worse again. My oxygen requirements increased, my shortness of breath was worse, and I was feeling pretty weak. Last Friday (1-29) I saw my pulmonologist. She had the results from a recent sputum culture and, based on those findings, took me off Tobi (the nebulizer medicine for the pseudomonas) and put me on an oral antibiotic for something else that looked like it was pretty low-level at the time of the specimen collection. She also prescribed me a steroid inhaler to calm things down and digestive enzymes to aid absorption.
Over the weekend I actually felt worse. However, just a week later, it seems things are taking hold. I think it just took my system several days to adjust to everything but lots of little indicators (O2 levels, heart rate, strength, mood, and more) have improved sufficiently to indicate to me that maybe this concoction is what my body needs to do some healing and get back to optimum, what ever that is for me.
I was also able to get referred to several other specialists in the UCLA system and have set up appointments over the next couple months. This is truly an answer to prayer - at the beginning of December I was afraid I was going to have to wait until November of 2010 to switch!
