Good Bye For Now

I've been trying to figure out endings for most of my life.

I'm not a person who breaks up with girlfriends, leaves jobs or even says good bye to a geographic locale. Many of my major life decisions were motivated by some combination of beautiful vision, peer behavior and desperation.

But I'm getting better at it. I sometimes almost know that the time has come to close a chapter and open something new. And this is one of them.

Here's the medical update: I got another X-Ray and went to the pulmonologist, Doc Peterson. I got another CAT scan and talked to Dr. Wendy.

Fred is no better and no worse. Doc Peterson said that this is evidence for his theory that Fred is a collapsed lung lobe. In this theory Fred began when my right middle lobe lost its air vacuum at some point and the walls of the lobe got stuck together by the juices that live in the lungs. It has never re-inflated. The doc says I could live my life in this condition and it might be just fine. He doesn't see evidence for a more active intervention - which have their own danger and side effects. I have to keep watching it because I'm more at risk for big-time infections and over-growths of fungus with a collapsed lobe.

I also did more lab tests, both blood and poop. They all look good except the eosinophil count. Normal is around 500 and mine are 1100. Eosinophils are one of five major white blood cells, the kind of cell that fights disease. This probably means there's an undiagnosed infection somewhere which my body has rallied to fight.

So, here I am, a good six months since I got very serious about getting a diagnosis for fevers, lung density, and a high eosinophil count. The fevers are basically gone. It's possible the lung problem is just another physical problem I can manage like my asthma. And, I'm not very interested in more tests and doctor visits.

So, while I'd like to write you about surfactants and their role in the lungs, I'm going to restrain myself. I'm not going to take this blog down but I'm ending these regular updates for... awhile. I'm making an ending and leaving this option open.

Thank you for reading.

It changed my life to be this open about my life and have so many people respond with affection and love. Who knows? Maybe it was just that which pushed the fevers away. Thank you.