My Melmoirs

Home is where my heart is, and boy am I happy to be here!  I came home from the hospital over the weekend, on pain meds and oxygen. But in true "Melly style", my stay in the hospital was anything but straightforward and I kept the docs on their toes -- it is my job after all! In addition to the embolization recovery, I also developed  pleurisy  and they suspected a blood clot in my lung. Each of those three issues is painful in their own right and I found myself dealing with all three at the same time. Oh, and did I mention all three were in the same lung?! Simply put, it sucked!   The good news is that by the time I left the hospital my oxygen "at rest" had stabilized, so I've only needed oxygen when I'm standing up. When I got home the pain was still the primary issue but luckily it's lessening a little each day. Now my biggest challenge is breathing. My breathing is very labored and it's hard for me to hold a conversation without stoppi...

As my trusted life partner, Didi, wrote last night, the embolization went well. [Thanks again, Didi!] There was a large blood vessel in my left lung they blocked, using "a large amount of embolis." He could've embolized more, however the location of the other vessels were too close to my spinal chord, so the risk outweighed the benefit. That was the easy part. Toward the end of the procedure I began having intense jaw pain and migraine on the same side as the lung they worked on. The pain grew so bad I began vomitting for the first time in over a decade. There's always the possibility of the material they use going rogue and floating somewhere they're not supposed to, so they were quick to rule out a heart attack and stroke -- a massive relief!  While it took all night, we've been able to get a better handle on the pain with the right pain and nausea medications. Today the pain is more in my lung and surrounding areas.  O    U    ...

Hello everyone. Just a quick update that the procedure went well and Mel is in recovery. It took about 6 1/2 hours under conscious sedation (general would've been too risky.) Her last embolization focused only on her right lung, so this time they worked solely on her left lung.  Now comes recovery.... she’s got this! I’m also going to leave my email address here odilia16@gmail.com in case anyone needs it. Oh and I apologize, I don’t have an ounce of Melly’s talent in the writing department. Sorry🤗 Love, Didi **Update: Recovery has not been easy for Mel. She's been in excruciating pain and unable to keep and liquids and/or oral meds down. More details to come tomorrow...

[Sigh] Thursday's appointment was a long one. There was much discussed, more testing ordered, and a few plans made. The good : My PFTs (breathing tests) were up a few percentage points, my weight was up a few pounds, and we knew for sure it was time to give my body a much-needed break from antibiotics.  My doc decided it was also time to pull my IV line. The bad : I was literally in Interventional Radiology, lying on the bed waiting for my line to be removed when [BAM!] I had another episode of hemoptysis (bleeding from the lungs). I immediately emailed my CF team and it was decided I would keep my line in a while longer and consult with my IR doc about another surgical procedure (pulmonary embolization) to manually stop the bleeding in my pulmonary arteries. The ugly : After reviewing the frequent bleeding I've had over the past month, the amount of blood I've lost (based on blood work), and my most recent CT scan, it was decided that another embolizati...