Going on Oxygen

Going on Oxygen 

 

     By my 6th and final year of college, my health had progressively declined. I could barely walk a few steps without gasping for air. I felt very self-conscious about this when I was in class or in the hallways as I was breathing so heavily, I'm sure people noticed. One day I walked out to my car to go to class but realized I left something important in the house that I needed for class. I couldn’t go back. There was no way I could scale the steps and walk the necessary distance to get what I needed. I knew I couldn’t keep going on like this.

    It was on Easter of 2006, age 24, that I told my family I was sick, and this time I needed to go to the hospital. I had never felt this sick before. This was unlike any other time. Never before had I ever been so winded. I could barely catch my breath at rest. We called the doctor the next day and I was admitted into the hospital. I did my best to shower, do my hair, and put on my make-up. I wanted to try to live as normally as possible. I remember it took a lot of effort to shower, as the shower was not in my room. It was instead, down the hall, and I could not wear my oxygen. I remember my doctor telling me that if someone off the street were to see me, they wouldn’t even know that anything was wrong with me. After this hospital stay, I came home on oxygen. I had frequent check-ups at the doctor’s office to keep a close eye on my lung function. I came home with orders for some new medical equipment. I had a pulse ox machine and I would check my oxygen periodically, throughout the day. I also had a blood pressure cuff as my blood pressure was very high and needed to be monitored. I came home on IVs and I don't think I came off until 3 months after my lung transplant. It was almost the end of the semester, but I could not go to school anymore. I had a therapist coming to do my therapy one to two times a day.  My sister and mother would do it the other one or two times a day, for a total of three times a day. I had an oxygen concentration machine which pulled oxygen out of the air and it connected to a long tube that had a cannula on the other end. I was able to travel pretty far around my house with it. I could even walk to the front of my house, possibly the back.  I was also given a portal oxygen tank that I could take with me on short trips.  

(This was taken on Easter when I knew I needed to get to a hospital. It's not uncommon for people with CF to look way better than they feel. I truly felt horrendous and could barely breathe. My mom had given me a penguin as a funny gift because she always would tell me she gave me wings to fly, and I would tell her, "You gave me the wings of a penguin, non-functional," Just one of our jokes.)

 

(My brother and I were on IV antibiotics at the same time.  I was also on oxygen.)

 

(A family dinner; on oxygen.)

    At this point I was doing everything and anything I could do to try to improve my health.  I was drinking tons of Traditional Medicinal Teas, using the Acapella, nebbing hypertonic saline, Pulmozyme, Xopenex, Mucomyst, and possibly more.  I even tried using the Flutter but at this time, that didn't help too much. I was constantly in CF groups looking for any new medications or natural remedies that could help.

 

(Doing my nebulizer through my Acapella)