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Rainbow over Rhinebeck, New York

It was two weeks ago on Monday, that I was very, very close to heading to SK "Urgent Care".  If you've been one of the dear ones reading along with my infrequent posts, you know that SK is short for Memorial Sloane-Kettering Hospital, and "Urgent Care" is SK's nice way of saying Emergency Room.  You would also know that I've been struggling with a respiratory problem that has been up and down, for a very, very long time.  Since January 2010.  Just about a month and a half after my eleven hour surgery.

I haven't posted here in awhile, but I've been tweeting here and there, so maybe those of you reading (except for friends and loved ones) may have thought things were better.  They actually were, for a little while.  About three weeks.  Back around February.  I thought I was through it, the damage done by the Arimidex finally healed.  But I caught a bug after that, and back on antibiotics, and my lungs being so sensitive still, started coughing again.  I started to heal, and the cough seemed to subside...and I was just starting to feel relieved...and then I came down with something else.  My immune system has been pummeled so badly, Eric caught a really bad cold, and trying so hard for me not to catch it, trying everything we could...wasn't enough.  This time, my lungs wouldn't heal.  Antibiotics were not enough, back on prednisone...which you know causes my nervous system to go haywire, totally trips up my anxiety disorder, and crushes my immune system even further.  And this time, even with all that, my lungs still would not heal.  They got better, but no, they didn't completely heal, and so I was still coughing, and coughing, and well...coughing.

I got to a point where I felt I had an adult version of "shaken baby syndrome", the year and a half of the jerking around of my body from all the constant coughing made me feel as if the connection between my head and spinal cord had been damaged in some way...feeling confused, not with it, couldn't remember things...a feeling of being in a fog most of the time.  Along with the exhaustion that so much coughing causes.  Including bruising a rib here and there.  Makes for some really difficult coughing, definitely not pain-free.

And then came that day, which was incidentally the day before I had my follow up appointment with my oncologist at SK.  I could not stop coughing.  Not for a minute.  It was so terribly bad...and I just could not take it any longer.  In speaking to my nurse, we carefully considered having me go to Urgent Care, and the possibility of being admitted.  I would give anything for this torture to end...but being admitted into the hospital...really didn't know if I wanted to do that.  As long as I could breathe, I really didn't want to do that.  So we kept my appointment set with Dr. T for the next day.

And then a very strange thing happened.  A strange good thing.  When I woke up the next morning, exhausted as I was from the really bad day before, I wasn't coughing so much.  Really, I was hardly coughing.  I was really happy of course, but relieved that my nurse had heard what I sounded like on the phone the day before, or else they would have really been wondering just how bad it could have been.  Dr. T came in and I could see the concern on her face.  I know she feels responsible for prescribing the Arimidex, and then not realizing that it wasn't my asthma, but the Arimidex, that was causing the never ending, lungs filled with fluid, cough. 

I told her it was better that day, and she looked relieved, but we decided for me to see their pulmonary specialists right away, and have me go for a CT scan.  So we set up appointments, but the first new appointment with their pulmonary team wasn't for a couple of weeks.  Dr. T's team was going to work on moving that up.

I almost felt like I was cheating on my pulmonary doctor, who has always been so good to me.  But I knew that if I would have called him and said my lungs wouldn't clear, he would have prescribed more prednisone, and my body just can't do that anymore.  Just can't.

Then another strange, good thing happened.  I woke up the next day, and my lungs were even clearer than the day before.  And I am so happy to say...so, so happy to say...this has gone on every day since...and with so much gratitude and relief, I can say yesterday was the first day, in a year and a half (except for those precious three weeks in February) that I woke up not coughing.  And today was the second day that I woke up, not coughing.  I can't begin to explain the peace I am experiencing without all that noise in my head, the calm without my body jerking all over, the settling of my stomach as the coughing would upset my stomach, making it hard for me to eat...I can't begin to explain how this feels.  I can take a full breath without coughing.  I can do Ujai breath for the first time since all this started.  It feels like a miracle, and my eyes are filled with tears of gratitude for this precious gift.

When I spoke to my nurse to tell her this good news, she was so relieved.  She confided in me that she and Dr. T were very concerned about me, and very nervous before my appointment that day.  She asked me if I had any thoughts as to why things happened this way.  The only thing I can think of was, that my lungs had barely healed from the Arimidex when I had those three weeks of no coughing months ago, and then I caught those bugs...too much for my already damaged lungs to handle...it was just taking them a really long time to heal again, to recover in that extra sensitive state.  I think that really bad day may have been my lungs pushing through a final clearing.  But we'll really never know, and it really doesn't matter, because all I know is...I'm not coughing.

So, even though I am very weak (all my body wants to do is sleep, it's been working so hard to heal), and I know it's going to take a long, long time and lots and lots of hard work to get my strength back...I see amazing possibilites in my future...being on my yoga mat, getting to class, making malas, traveling to see my family and my Guru...and I want to thank all of you for your love and support through all this, coming from all over the country and as far away as Australia (God bless you Lesley), you made the darkest days brighter and my heart swell with the love and healing light being sent my way.  And other beautiful, powerful energies that have been surrounding me.  Namaste, Jai Bhagwan, many, many blessings...and lots and lots of love to all of you.  My lungs are clear, I am not coughing, and I can really, really, breathe.