My Life in Paroxysms in General Mental Anesthesia

This is the most recent update to the GoFundMe Page , on here it’s a continuation of my entry “No need to check your ac, it’s just me venting”.

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I mentioned in that entry that I had 16 all nighters… I finished off June with 21!!! Out of the 9 days I did sleep, they were all 2 hours or less. That trend has continued in July…

Yawn, cough, cough, cough....

So I went back to my GI a week after that post, but I was still coughing and of course they wouldn’t start the Humira. They said I had to go see my primary care dr. to get this cough addressed, so I did.

I had to see another dr. at my primary’s office, but she was very nice. She didn’t believe that I had an infection as I wasn’t exhibiting any other symptoms than this dry cough. In fact, she thought the culprit was the Lisinopril w/hydrochlorothiazide that I was taking, so she switched me to Valsarten w/ hydrochloro… and gave me a prescription to treat the cough.

Over the following week however, things worsened severely. I was having coughing spasms that reduced me to tears; I had excruciating chest pains, pains in my heart, dizziness and I couldn’t breathe! My blood pressure was in the upper 150’s to the 110’s. I knew I had to go back to the dr.

I went back to my primary care yesterday and saw my regular dr. Dr. Lovato, love this guy! Anyhoo, he took chest x-rays and put me on a breathing apparatus. I actually needed a 2nd breathing treatment as the 1st was ineffective.

If you notice in this popeye selfie during my 2nd treatment… how swollen my fingers are… that’s what Prednisone does kids. :/ I could barely grasp the inhaler and it was feather light.

My lungs once again came back clear and other than the dry cough I had no other symptoms. He asked me a few questions, namely if I felt like I was in a constant bear hug. I emphatically said YES!!!! FOR THE LONGEST TIME!!!! He then asked about dizziness, shortness of breath and headaches and he determined that I was dealing with reactive airway disease. In a sense… for the last 10 weeks I’ve been having one severe asthma attack after another after another and didn’t realize it.

He also said that I have tears in the muscle tissue in my chest (right side) because of my violent coughing spasms… (it really hurts…) then he said: that I’m coughing because my body wants to get rid of something. I asked him: “If my lungs are clear, what is there to get rid of?” He said he was going to give me an antibiotic “Augmentin” because he did think I had some sort of infection as well as an inhaler to help me breathe.

I picked these scripts up and started taking them. Can you believe the stupid Ventalin inhaler was $70!!! I had no choice, I like to breathe. :(

Today was absolutely brutal!!! Coughing spasms, chest pains, tears running down my face…. And because my GI is still weaning me off the Prednisone… that is getting really bad again…. I’m bleeding, going to the bathroom 8 – 12x a day and the pain is significantly worse (and I’m dumbing that down).

Now, here’s something very interesting.

For those of you following my updates and pb entries, you’ve watched a video recently of me explaining many of the vitamins and herbs that I take to help with the colitis as well as the prednisone side-effects. Many of these have antioxidant properties and I take them because UC is an autoimmune disease and Prednisone is an autoimmune suppressant.

I’ve only taken two doses of the antibiotic Augmentin and suddenly I have a full blown cold. I’m congested, my nose is running, I have a low grade fever (as of now). What must have been happening was that I had a cold or bug of some kind, but the strength of all the things I was taking suppressed the symptoms except for the cough. My body knew there was an infection, but it wasn’t able to materialize. Somehow by the antibiotic going to war in my gut, my body is reacting and the illness is coming to the surface.

Now, I just have to be concerned about c-diff (which I’ve had twice and is life threatening) also, my dr. told me not to take my probiotics until after the course of antibiotics or else it won’t work.

Needless to say… I am concerned.

Of course I want to thank anyone and everyone that has shared, donated and continues to do so. I don’t know how to make the page go viral, but every $10 - $20 helps get meds, a little more pays for a test or a dr. apt and so forth. I’m still alive and fighting because of your kindness, caring and generosity and that is no exaggeration. Please know that and I love you all!

Last updated July 13, 2018