Saturday will be 14 days of IVs so I called my nurse to let her know how I am feeling.  I am still having the pain in my lower right side (just at the bottom of my ribs) that has been there for a few weeks.  I’m convinced that my right lung has it out for me.  It seems to be where most of my infection is, I fracture ribs from coughing on that side and I also get random pains on that side.  Maybe it’s my special party trick.

The outcome from my appointment today was the following:

• Pain is possibly another rib fracture or muscle strain or pleurisy or if I’m real special, a combo of the 3.
• We added Prednisone for 5 days to hopefully help with any inflammation in the right lung area that is bothering me.  I asked if it was going to be a “crazy lady” dose or a “nice Shannon” dose.  He said, “when does your husband go to work?  Take it then  haha…funny guy.  He also gave me lidocaine patches to try topically for the pain…we shall see.  They haven’t worked in the past but it’s a new day.
• We also changed the IV Zosyn every 6 hours to IV Cefepime every 8 hours.  I told him I needed more sleep!  Plus, I feel better but not all the way better, but then again I am having a hard time knowing what my “better” is anymore.  I am staying on the IV Colistin every 12 hours.  I will do the Cefepime and Colistin for another 7 days, making it a total of 21 days as per my usual.
• I had a regular chest x-ray and a rib x-ray to check for changes on my regular x-ray and to see if there are any notable fractures on the rib x-ray.
• I also did lung functions and my FEV1 was 34% / 1.00 L (Predicted Liters is 2.96 for a health version of me).  That is up 2% from last time (Nov. 21st) but down 2% from the time before that (Nov. 3rd).  It’s not much of a change really.  In the big picture it is pretty much the same.  Now if it were to fluctuate 5% or more that is considered more of a significant change.

That about sums up my day at good ol CF clinic.  They handed me a print out of the appointment summary.  My doctor said, “you even get notes from me on the back page.”  I said, “Does it say to put me out to the pasture and ya know…?”  He said, “No.”  haha

Until next time…