The plot sickens..

Looks like we are seeing some additional side effects of my chemo, which was R-CHOP+V, the five poisons, goosed by Prednisone.  To summarize, I have had recurring pneumonia. First bout in early summer (after a cruise) of 2014. The cruise required some exertion in terms of walking that I don't think, in retrospect, I was up to. Then, this last fall, I again got the usual upper respiratory infection that turned to pneumonia, again, subsequent to exertion. It was treated successfully by levaquin. But it apparently only receded and didn't fully go away because by the time we got to AZ and I began a single workout, I was again in Urgent Care, and again they diagnosed pneumonia and I took another dose of levaquin and again the pneumonia appears to have receded. (In all of this the exercise is prolly coincidental.)

My Logan doc suggested the next step was pulmonology. So we did some respiratory studies. Some discrepancies in memory now arise. When I questioned the tech who did the blow-air-out test, I thought she said I was at about 50% of normal capacity, but I may have heard, 50th percentile, meaning average. My doc said my lungs were fine, reinforcing my misinterpretation of the results. I don't have the (volumetric?) parameter but around a 5 is normal and I scored around 2.7. (When I was 40 and swimming, I had a huge vital capacity according to the grad students who were doing the BMI tests.)

I did nothing more until the acute pneumonia crisis just before Xmas.  The Family Practitioner there also suggested moving on to a pulmonologist and recommended one with whom her family was positively acquainted. It took until yesterday to get an appointment.

So down to Phoenix we trudged. And made the acquaintance of David Drachler, MD, Pulmonology, one really good dude. I blew again. This time I scored a 1.7, now showing lung capacity to be about a third of normal, and suggesting a decrease in function since last month! My O2 levels in my extremities are way over 90% which baffles them given such poor lung function. We are gathering all the imaging I have had done at IHC in Logan, and the X rays and CT scan I had done here so that DD can examine them all.  Notably, my lungs are clear. While fatigued, I am otherwise okay.

We are thinking that life changed for my lung function around the first pneumonia in June 2014. There is a difference of opinion as to whether there has been a gradual decrease in function since then, or several acute episodes that have led to the same end. Kind of academic anyway since I am where I am, but maybe informative as to what has caused this.

My diagnosis is: restrictive lung disease. DD wonders about a connective tissue disorder. I am not totally clear on what that constitutes. He feels that my diaphragms may not be functioning as they should. Anatomically, my diaphragms have escaped their usual confines and have grown over my lower rib cage. At this point the diagnosis is an empty label, purely descriptive. Hopefully, further tests will add info. He drew blood to look for some factors that would rule out some conditions and is scheduling fluoroscopy of the chest to see just what the diaphragms are doing.

Stay tuned.