Monday, July 11, 2005

Further down this road

I'm feeling a bit better about things. It's been a long, if somewhat more interesting than I prefer, sort of day. But at least I didn't have to fight on a concrete floor with a terrorist.

My appointment with the pulmonary guy went well. The histoplasmosis is taking up the same amount of space, but the asthma is worse--bad enough that I now have to take this Advair stuff twice a day every day indefinitely. He said sometimes people with my degree of asthma are able to stop taking it during the winter, when the air is more dry and less pollution-filled, but that I ought to for now take it every day until I see him again in six months. He said that the thing about asthma is that as its degree worsens, you don't realize that it's actually even worse than you think it is because you become acclimated to the level of suck (he didn't say it that way exactly; he used much more technical medical terms that I don't remember) and that after a while, getting only a certain percentage of the air you should be getting becomes normal. Then when it gets worse, you get used to that too, and so on and so forth ad nauseum until you're to the point where you can start to have major problems and not realize it. This Advair stuff is an attempt to prevent that from happening by bronchiodilating you for 12 hours at a time so you don't have to use albuterol when you skate up a hill and cough one of your lungs out onto the street.

I'm one of those people who are opposed to taking any medication unless it's absolutely necessary; I didn't fill my Vicodan prescription and only took one dose of ibuprofen when I dislocated my shoulder attempting to ski backward down a mountain in New York. I only take something if it's to the point that I really can't stand it, like with that migraine I had a week or so ago. So the idea of getting on this drug that I'm going to have to take potentially indefinitely doesn't thrill me a whole lot. However, it sounds like it's to the point that it's a necessity. I opened the sample he gave me at the office today and read the package insert, right up to this line: "Long-term use of inhaled corticosteroids, including fluticasone propionate, a component of ADVAIR DISKUS, may increase the risk of some eye problems."

Great.

Needless to say, that made me even less eager to inhale that shiznit like there's no tomorrow. The Advair is sitting on the computer table, patiently waiting for Thursday, at which point I'll ask the eye doctor if it's okay for me to take this stuff or not. It might be a bit dramatic, but if I have to pick between asthma and blind, I'll take the asthma, thanks.

I also gave the lung guy the contact info for the eye guy and asked him to call and to fax all my info over there so the eye guy can at least have access to it before I go in there, thus precluding him telling me again that all my other doctors suck. M is coming with me to the eye appointment. I'm trying to get myself emotionally ready to handle it. It'll be good to have some sort of support there.

Apparently today M had an interesting day as well. Even hiding behind my lack of name, gender, and otherwise personal identity on this blog, I suppose I really ought not post the highly confidential shit that went down at M's job today. But apparently, one less terrorist is roaming the streets because of an act of sheer stupidity that got him caught, jailed, and in a fight on a concrete floor with a law enforcement officer. It's a little freaky to know that earlier today, M was fighting with some dude who was trained by al Quaeda in Afghanistan. I'm not going to post the full juicy details here because I'm not supposed to know them; M is not supposed to tell me. And I don't want to break any confidentiality laws and have organizations with three initials that might be A, I and C but not in that order reading my blog and asking why I'm posting uber-secret shit like this. (How's that for a tease? Worse than 17-year-old jailbait, I'll wager.) Not that I think that would happen if I disclosed the full story, but it's best not to take chances with this sort of thing. Maybe it will be on the news; maybe it won't. M comes home with a lot of stores that I think are highly newsworthy but that wind up not being so because of one reason or another (*cough*itneverhappened*cough). In the melee, M managed to only sustain a kick to the ribs that wasn't too bad and some scratches on the arm. I hate that, but M chose this line of work and will not be budged away from it, no matter what. I'm more or less used to it, but when things like this happen and M is injured, I tweak a bit. At least M got to meet a counterterrorist operative from the three-initialed organization. That's kind of cool.

At any rate, I feel like this morning when I was proofing stuff and trying not to think about my wonky vision was about a hundred years ago. I suppose I ought to do the sensible thing and go to bed. Sleep well, me, tomorrow is another big day...

3 Comments:

At July 12, 2005 8:39 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm also of the "don't medicate unless you have to" mentality, but sometimes, modern science isn't such a bad thing. (There are reasons people are living beyond 30.) Plus, painkillers are something you can live without, where breathing... well, slightly more important.
Crazy about this M character. Nice name choice, though. M stands for "awesoMe" 'round here.
(Slow day at work. I'll be killing time all day.)

 
At July 12, 2005 11:18 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

In the case of the inhaler...well if dry air would help maybe a change of location? Say Arizona...?

 
At July 12, 2005 8:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, Advair buddy! I too am on the pretty purple discus deal twice a day. Hopefully it's not going to do anything horrible to your vision, because actually it works really well for me. It just does suck that you kind of have to take it indefinitely. Anytime I stop, I start hacking and coughing and lovely things again. Anywho, glad to hear that at least one aspect of things isn't getting any worse. Try not to stress over your next appointment too much! And thanks for the encouragement... sleep. and stuff. I could use some of that... haha.

 

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