This is a picture of me on a ventilator during a severe asthma exacerbation . See the little IV bottle inside the blue rectangle with the milky looking stuff inside ? That’s Propofol !

Also known as Diprivan or “Milk of Amnesia” in medical circles, this is the drug that the media has been talking so much about in the Michael Jackson tragedy. When I heard the allegations that they found this drug in his home, I couldn’t believe it. This is the very the same stuff they use on me when my breathing gets so bad that I require a breathing tube and a ventilator to breath. I can tell you from personal experience that is an extremely powerful sedative anesthetic. A great drug for keeping someone under during surgery (or in my case, being maintained on a ventilator), because it works so fast. You can basically control someones conscienceness with the flip of a switch. The moment the drug hits your blood stream you’re out instantly , and depending how rapidly the drug is infused , it can induce a coma state. When it’s time to wake you up, they simply stop the infusion and within seconds….. bam, you’re awake ( hopefully). But if something went wrong and you got too much of the drug or weren’t monitored properly, you could easily stop breathing. There can be other adverse side effects as well, such as lactic acidosis, something of which has happened to me on more than one occasion while on the drug.

The use of propofol during a severe asthma attack, is to basically put you to sleep (after you’ve been intubated), so that the ventilator can take over your breathing and your body can rest. They usually keep you in this coma-like state for a couple of days until you’re lungs are functioning better and you’re able to breath again on your own.

I guess the keywords here are …BREATHING TUBE and VENTILATOR…. You’ll notice in the picture, I’m wired from head to toe and hooked up to a breathing machine, not to mention I’m in an Intensive Care Unit! I can’t even imagine anyone being given this drug outside of a hospital setting.

If it turns out that there were physicians or nurses administering him this drug outside of a hospital setting,they should have their licenses revoked permanently!

Last Saturday I did my first post-hospital semi long training walk for the new racing season, but it turned out to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. I was pretty much breathless the entire distance and had to terminate the walk at mile 7 instead of mile 8 as planned. Since my lungs tend to dictate how far and fast I can walk, it looks like the San Francisco (1/2) marathon is NOT going to happen for me this year. My lungs are just too screwed up right now to tackle a 13 mile walk. That last flare up really did a number on my body, and with less than 4 weeks to prepare, there’s no way Id be able to pull it off. I’m a little bummed, because I really thought Id be healthy enough, to not only do the race, but also be able to push myself hard enough to PR it.
I may, as the date approaches, sign up to do the 5K or progressive marathon just for fun. A lot of my friends do the various races at the SF marathon every year and it would be nice to at least hook up with them.

Assuming my lungs cooperate and I’m able to get myself back in the groove, my next real race will be the ET midnight marathon on August 8th. Once again though, I’ll probably downgrade to the 10K , because I don’t wanna stress myself too much until Ive had a chance to recondition. Last year I did the 1/2 marathon , but I think considering the environment, it was a bit too much for me. The 1/2 marathon course goes basically up the side of mountain for 7 miles and then down for 6.
The plan this year, is to fly out to Las Vegas the day of the event and then rent a car for the drive out to the actual race site. It will definitely be more tiring to do it this way, but I’ll have the flexibly of coming and going as I please and wont have to sit on a cramped bus for 3 hours.

I’m still mulling over my race choices for the fall. Some of the best races around here occur in October, November and December.

Check out Roxylns report about the Slacker half marathon/relay/4m run in Colorado. Boy, those mountains sure look beautiful don’t they?

What blows me away, is that this race STARTS at an elevation of 10,600 ft….thats 2 miles up! These two never cease to amaze me.

Received my Boston finishers certificate today. It took me more than 7 hours to do it, but I’m now officially the first person ever, with severe refractory asthma, to enter and finish the Boston marathon!

He won’t admit it, but even Winston is proud of me. I can tell, because his eyes are glowing green.(No, I’m not allergic to cats)

PS..Registration for next years race opens in September…hmmmmmm I wonder ?

As asked by Physicians when I’m in the hospital and ranked in order of dislike.
( I’m sure my fellow lungers can relate)

#1) What triggered your asthma attack this time?
#2) Why does your asthma get so bad?
#3) Do you think anxiety makes your asthma worse?
#4) Do you know how to check your peak flows ?
#5) What can we do to keep you out of the hospital?
#6) Have you ever been intubated for your asthma?
#7) Why did you wait so long to come in for treatment?

And this is how I usually answer them.

#1) I don’t know.
#2) I have bad asthma.
#3) Suffocating to death tends to make me a little anxious .
#4) I know more about pulmonary functions then you can ever hope to know.
#5) How about taking care of me when I’m NOT sick.
#6) I hold the worlds record.
#7) Because I hate answering stupid questions like these.

Do you detect a little sarcasm?

I think this is a record….even for me. 138 grand for 6 days in the hospital? The bill itself, is enough to give you an asthma attack!

It’s funny…just by reading the line by line hospital charges, I was able to come up with a chronological time line of the events that took place. I was able to figure out when they put me on the ventilator and when they took me off. There were also things charged for that I didn’t even know happened. An abdominal CT scan with contrast for example; I didn’t even remember having that done until I saw the charge for it…almost $5,000.
Page 5 has some real whoppers, like $2200.00 just to set-up a ventilator or how about $100 per hour for Albuterol treatments! It just blows my mind.

To view the entire itemized bill ( all 16 pages of it) Click here . I think you’ll be amazed at just how much each individual item costs at this hospital.