Given the hand I was dealt early in life, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of adapting. And despite the challenges Ive faced because of this disease, not much slows me down. I can still function pretty normal most of the time, continue to have a fairly good quality of life, and let’s […]
Ive written many times about how expensive medical care is here in the SF bay area and how much its cost to treat this asthmatic, this time Id like to focus more on asthma medications when you’re on Medicare. Before I get to that, if you’re not familiar with how Medicare works, here’s a list […]
Taken only 11 days apart, I think these two photos of my ICU nurse and I, sum up this post nicely. In a nut shell… Mission accomplished. Or as the race promoter says… We got the Chocolate! No it wasn’t a marathon, not even close, but the distance wasn’t the point. It was all about […]
First of all…Happy New Year Greetings from the 13th Floor ICU at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco! But the real story here, is that my desire to live a normal life, despite my lungs, got the better of me again and I signed up to do another race….while still sick from a severe asthma […]
On Nov 26th, 2019, I underwent my 4th Glottic dilation in 10 months for my PGS. This most recent surgery was pretty much a duplicate of the last one done back in May. They cut out the scar tissue with a laser, dilated my airway by stretching the space between my vocal cords (the glottis) […]
Im continually blown away on how much it’s costs to treat a severe exacerbation here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Granted, we have some of the best hospitals and medical care anywhere in the world here, but it certainly doesn’t come cheap. 2019 was an exceptionally expensive year. For starters, how about $600,000.00 for […]
The last few weeks have been nuts. With a rash of wildfires throughout the area and other health issues to deal with, I got side tracked and forgot to post this. Back in August I had a semi brief, but stressful stint in the hospital. My breathing was being made worse by GI issues that […]
Wanna know a secret? Believe it or not, there was a time about 15 years ago when I began this whole fitness and walking thing, that I actually thought it was cool having really bad asthma. Sounds crazy I know, but at the time there very few people (that Im aware of) who had super […]
This all began back in mid July. I basically woke one morning and my abdomen was so bloated and distended, I looked like I was pregnant and couldn’t breath. No big deal for most people, as everyone gets bloated from time to time, but when you have severely compromised lung function, it’s a whole nuther […]
I used to jokingly tell people that I’m a human barometer or a walking weather station, because my lungs are so sensitive to the environment. Well thanks to Atmotube, now I actually am. Not only does their newest gadget, the Atmo tube PRO and it’s companion phone app, monitor and track the current weather conditions, […]
Better to have too many than not enough I suppose. And always better to have several back ups, should one stop working. Below are just some of the nebulizer units I have. Because my lung function is so low, my airways don’t respond very well to inhaled bronchodilators that are administered through metered dose inhalers […]
If you’re a hardcore asthmatic or COPDer you know the drill. It’s begins with increasing difficulty in breathing, followed by a trip to the the ER, then a possible stint on life support, followed by a week in the ICU, a miraculous reversal of symptoms and then home to start the recovery/healing process. Of course […]
I don’t have to tell you how important it is to develop a good relationship with your pulmonologist and other doctors, but its also important to establish open lines of communication with them especially when you have a disease like asthma. Chronic severe asthma is not a condition that just requires the occasional check up, […]
