Al's Blog-o-Sphere

I went for my first bronchoscopy this morning. Apparently these invasions will be a regular part of my health regime – bimonthly for the first year, tri-monthly during the second year, then as directed, such as when illness occurs. It’s the primary means of collecting information on the status of the donor lungs and is thusly a very necessary evil. The upshot is that the lungs are accessible through existing bodily channels, unlike say, a liver or a kidney; collecting tissue samples for biopsy is quicker and far cleaner.

I only had a cursory knowledge of what a bronchoscopy entails, so I was hesitant. Anything that goes down my windpipe had damned well better be or digestible, that’s my motto. The whole process, barring complication, takes little more than twenty minutes. I was administered a dose of a sedative known as Versed, which is known to induce fugues. Throughout the process, I’m told, I was never comatose, I just have no memory of what happened after they told me the Versed was going in. They could’ve stripped naked and danced to “Love Shack” for fifteen minutes, for all I know. Continue Reading…

[Photos first seen on Ezra Klein’s Blog]

Well, now that it’s over, I think I’ll say a word or two on the election.

I am so glad that Barack Obama won the election. I was afraid it was going to be closer that it was and that he was going to get robbed like Al Gore did.

But it didn’t happen that way and I think we’ve got a good chance at seeing some Change – the byword of his campaign, by the way – and I think it will be in a positive direction.

A message of Hope wins over Hate and Fear [seen on Twitter]

One of the things I like about Obama is he doesn’t seem to be caught up in the Old-Boy network of Washington Politics. Yes, he’s a Senator from Illinois, and he is adept at working in that framework, but he’s not afraid to go his own way. He seems to genuinely care about the people of this country, not just the rich and powerful ones, but all of them. Continue Reading…

And we have mobility! Another pair of those annoying chest tubes were pulled from my sides this morning. The gaps were quickly sutured up and dressed, and the results were immediately noticeable. With the new freedom to expand my ribcage, I felt worlds better.  More significantly, however, this meant that two of the clunky, oblong drainage containers could be cast away. It is infinitely simpler to manage one fluid collection box than three, while also holding onto a cardiometer and an I.V. pole. It also gave me the freedom to wear civilian clothing – a loose shirt – rather than the embarassing and drafty hospital-issue gowns I’d been wearing until now.

Things are slowly improving. My appetite is returning and I cannot wait to indulge in a proper meal. I know there’s nothing wrong with hospital food but it still feels somehow “wrong.”  My days are spent watching whatever non-election coverage I can find on television (none), playing my Gameboy, or engaging in various rehabilitation exercises. They like to take the patients out of their rooms for walks. When you consider that the majority of lung and heart transplants are in the elderly, a long walk could be pretty challenging.  So far, it hasn’t been a challenge at all. Perhaps I’m not asking to go far enough or do enough things. If they’d like to walk me, a trip to the cafeteria for to pick up some snacks would be a great idea. I’ll have to inquire about that. Continue Reading…

Well, I’ve made it back to Lockport. We all left Al this afternoon to fend for himself for a short while in the hospital. He’s got his computer, his cell phone and above all, his fan and is settled in for the next phase of his recovery.

He’s been complaining about a lack of or inability to sleep. After some reassurances from Mark, who’s had experience with his own transplant and most of the various drugs Al is being given, as well as his doctor who checked in just before we left, we hope he’ll sleep better. Al described how he would be almost asleep then have an involuntary twitch that woke him back up. We were discussing it and coined the term Doggie Dreams, but the doctor came up with a scientific term: Hypnagogic Jerk. Continue Reading…