Short of Breath? See a Doctor!

I went to work out at the other rehab yesterday.

Returning again this morning.

My breathing is so much better, the saturation rate is holding steady during the workout, I am not coughing on exertion, my thighs feel tighter (!), it has been fun to connect with everyone and I just feel better for having done it.

A woman, who I have gotten to know but haven't seen in a while, was working out on a bike when I arrived yesterday and we had a quick chat. She had just been diagnosed, via a needle biopsy, with fungus in her lungs. Very scary. Difficult to rid. Her doctor, who is very good and treats a lot of the people in my pulmonary rehab class, is treating her with antibiotics for 18 months with the hope of knocking it down before having to expose her to the anti-fungal drugs. They are brutal. I think that they are even harder on the body than prednisone. One of the women in my rehab class has been treated by these drugs for several years with no improvement. The fungus continues to grow. She continues to deplete.

Yesterday, I asked the woman about her symptoms and she replied that she was just short of breath. Nothing else.

Shortness of breath. It is a symptom of a problem with the heart or the lungs. One or the other. Or both! It is such a little symptom, which I ignored as I was overweight and thought that I was out of shape. I didn't see a doctor. Such a minor symptom. Then came the cough. The dry, hacking cough that grew until it sounded like I was coughing my brains out.

A cough. Shortness of breath.

By the time I saw a doctor, it was the summer of 2004. According to the big doctors at my university hospital where I was finally diagnosed via lung biopsy, I have had my ILD since late 2002. By the time I had my first Pulmonary Function Test, my DLCO was 7.7. As one doctor told me, I arrived so ill that there was not a whole lot they could do for me. Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis is a curable ILD if caught early. When removed from the antigen, the lungs heal. By the time I was diagnosed, the lungs were permanently damaged.

Simple symptoms. A bad diagnosis. A fatal diagnosis.

Know someone with these symptoms? Get them to a doctor!