As I mentioned in last week's post, I saw the pulmonologist on Wednesday. He prescribed me another inhaler and encouraged more regular usage of The Vest. I had not used it much as it made me feel beat up and cough up bloody mucus. However, my mom came up with the idea to wear a down vest underneath it for a bit of padding. This seems to help. The idea is that it loosens the phlegm and I can cough it up more easily. Doing this coupled with going to work a bit later seems to be improving my quality of life in the mornings - I basically get all the junk out at once instead of over the course of a few hours. I really wish the phlegm production could be stopped or minimized, but it's better than nothing.
After a week off the antibiotics I haven't had a relapse, so I think it's just a matter of my lungs getting back to "normal." I'm going to get back to the gym starting Thursday and will probably take it easy the first few days back. I've decided to focus on weight training at least 1-2 days a week so I can start building some muscle - especially on my legs.
The new mattress I bought on Sunday which will be delivered tomorrow - hopefully that will help too. I am the 4th or so person to have my current one, and it wasn't great to begin with. I imagine it's full of dander and dust mites as well.
I'm trying to be consistent with supplements as well - both those recommended by the Maker's Diet and the Oxymatrine from my Infectious Disease doctor (the antiviral). Hopefully something of this multi-tiered approach will start to make a difference (or, I suspect, they may work best in concert). I continue to hope but it is easy to get discouraged sometimes.
I think I should start keeping a hand-written health journal to track how I feel, what I eat, and what exercises I do. This may help paint a clear picture as well.
