Finally Home

Well we made it home Thursday night into Friday morning.

I am feeling better now than I did when I flew down to Florida so that is an improvement.

Of course on the plane we had a bit of a "mishap".  I was drinking lots of fluids to ensure that my kidney infection would not flare up again, so towards the end of the flight I had to pee really really bad.  I knew I would never make it till we landed and got off the plane.  P got up to use the restroom so when he returned I asked if I could bring the O2 concentrator in the stall.  He said there was enough room, but I decided to just leave it at my seat.  We were in row 2 and the restroom was literally 6 feet away.  I figured "no problem"!!!

HA!

Like I said, I had to pee really really bad.  So I peed for what seemed like 4 hours (more like 1 minute) and started to feel really bad.  I could feel my chest starting to tighten up and my heart starting to race.  Whether it was disorientation from lack of O2 or anxiety I don't know, but I was frantically trying to locate the TP.  I decided against washing my hands and I lumbered out of the restroom and back to my seat.  I threw the O2 on and my oximeter and desperately tried to inhale the luscious oxygen.  My O2 read 78% and my HR was over 170.  I felt like I was going to pass out.  I cranked the O2 up to 3L (I could have gone to 5L but I was a mess and not thinking right) and gasped for air.  I'm not going to lie, I was a bit scared.  It took a few minutes for my O2 to go above 85% and about 20 minutes for my heart rate to go below 120.  I was finally able to recover to pre-bathroom numbers and I settled back in my seat.  But I was shaken.  I felt completely drained and totally helpless.

All I could think about was if I hadn't brought my O2 letter (can't wear it on board if you don't have a letter from your doc) or if I hadn't had the altitude study done.  I could have died on board.  How scary is that?  The whole bathroom episode was probably no more than 3 minutes and I felt like I was going to die.  There is no way I would have survived 3 hours.  Its crazy scary to think that my lungs are that bad that only a small dip in O2 concentration can cause so much havoc.  It really shook my confidence in my health.  Not that it was awesome to begin with, but I had the "wear O2 when you sleep because you hover around 89-90% but don't notice a difference when you don't wear it" attitude keeping me afloat.

Now I have the weight of not vacationing anywhere faraway until after I get some new lungs.  I'm stuck on mainland USA or at least the East coast.  How sad is that?  I know I know, people have it SO MUCH worse, but it still fucking blows.  We were supposed to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon and plans got derailed.  We NEVER would have made it there.  My lungs never would have survived .  That thought depresses the shit out of me.

But I am very thankful that I made it home in one piece and that we were not affected by hurricane Sandy.  My prayers are with those who were devastated by her path.

I have a ton of doctor appointments and procedures coming up over the next few weeks so November will prove to be a very busy blogging month!