Healthcare — Page 6

In-Office Nasal Polyp Removal

July 30, 2011

Yesterday was another ENT visit to Dr. Tabor at the USF Health building on the TGH campus. He’s really growing on me; great chair-side manners, very knowledgeable and confident, and the technology he uses that lets me see what he’s doing fits me perfectly. Like usual, he hit “record” on his high-definition scope for this visit, and I’m so glad he did! He found a small polyp growing in my right side that was nearly coming out of my frontal sinus opening, and therefore completely blocking it from draining.

This is why I have monthly appointments – that polyp was not there 4 weeks ago to the day.

The video below is a tad graphic, so if you can’t handle blood or fluid, I’ll let my mild description be enough for you. Don’t worry, I won’t be too graphic in my description for you, unless your stomach is extraordinarily weak – in that case, I can’t help you; I’m biologically gross because of CF.

When Dr. Tabor saw the polyp’s location, he decided he wanted to remove it… now. [Read more…]

What Doesn’t Break You Only Makes You Stronger

July 23, 2011

I’ll see if I can get through this post without grabbing a Kleenex, so start your engines. My little buddy, Kaleb, has been having a heckuva time lately with infections and now he’s landed in the hospital with lung/blood infections, walking pneumonia, and more. On top of that, he’s got to have his port removed and placed on the other side due to one of the infections involving his port.

I’m a tough guy, but I’m also a softie once you get to know me or I get to know you, so when I read about the little ones going through what we go through, I don’t know why, but I feel like taking it for them.

Then I realize how stupid of a statement that is – given my position – I’ve got the same thing, only different!

I must be mental to want to take his place with those procedures, meds, pokes, and more likely than not guessing on the part of the medical staff. It has to be the “dad genes” kicking in now that we’re almost foster parents or something. A part of it is probably that I’ve been through so much, I know I can take it…

Here’s what I want you to do. Today. Sunday. Monday at the latest. Leave them a comment on their blog, or a comment here (they read and I believe they get e-mail notices of new posts. To go above and beyond, you can send him or his family something for this week in the hospital. He’s got at least 8 more days to go before he’s allowed to go home. They’ve made a list, so let’s show them some love. His mom made a list:

Kaleb likes Transformers, Dolphin or Orca Pillow Pet, Transforming Perry the Platypus Plush at Toys R Us, Phineas and Ferb THE MOVIE (Toys R US), Plush Angry bird (he only has a yellow one)
Gift cards/$ for/to Walmart, Target, Olive Garden, Pei Wei, PF Changs, Starbucks, QT, Wendy’s (any food)

Kaleb, your card is in the mail, so here’s a little something something extra for today:

Stuffy Ears and Fears of Allergies

July 18, 2011

Gray's Anatomy plate - Wikipedia.org

For several weeks now I have been experiencing uncomfortable swelling inside my right ear canal. Just my right ear. Just near the earlobe – shallow enough to touch with my pinkie. I put up with it for days before I realized it was following any sort of pattern.

I always felt it in the evening: after dinner and/or nebs, because sometime it waited until we were watching TV and sometimes it was nearly during dinner. Then I’d get it after lunch or mid-morning. The real tipping point for me was when it happened doing my nebs in the morning before I’d eaten or had anything to drink.

I mentioned it on Facebook and everyone suggested I see my doctor. We mulled over options here and decided to cut out Hot Pockets – my most recent high-calorie food addiction – what is “imitation mozzarella” anyway? That didn’t do anything but make my lunches take 5x longer to heat up. Same symptoms. It didn’t make sense to be an allergy to my food anyway. Who’s ever had a one-sided allergy in their ear from ingestion?

Friday morning I’d had enough

I called my PCP to see if he had changed his hours and was open on Fridays. He was and he could see me in an hour. I downed my breakfast and hit the road.

As far as family practice doctors go, he’s fantastic. What he doesn’t know about CF he more than makes up with general weird things [Read more…]

It’s a Sinus Summer

June 30, 2011

Florida has come full stride into the summer rain pattern. Read: any time, every day. It’s been raining 2-5 times per day for the last week now, and the barometric pressure changes are driving my sinuses bonkers.

Like my ENT wanted, I’ve been on vancomycin since my last appointment a month ago. Some mornings, I am literally stuffed on one side to the point that I wake up with flashbacks of having packing. It’s just one side, though.

Here’s what is super odd: I can’t make myself not sleep on that side. I know better, but almost every time I wake up, that’s the side I’m facing. Sleeping more inclined is a certain impossibility – I can’t even do that post-surgery to save my life, as if my life depended on it. I start out sitting up, but invariably end up on an armrest or scooched (Dang, how do you spell that? I give up.) all the way down to flat.

Also cool news is that I’ll be heading over to clinic with my old Hill-Rom Vest to donate it to another CFer in need who can’t get coverage… and providing another loogie sample to run a test again since my last results were more than odd. Better safe than sorry.

Aside from that, stay tuned Friday for the first in a very long, very exciting series that I’ve been planning for months. Just 12 more hours from now…

In-Office Nasal Polyp Removal

What Doesn’t Break You Only Makes You Stronger

Stuffy Ears and Fears of Allergies

Friday morning I’d had enough

It’s a Sinus Summer

Time Elapsed Since IVs