A Sigh of Relief

It comes as no surprise to me that my mom is a rare bird. But hearing that a cardio pulmonaryist recently exclaimed as much took my appreciation of that fact and turned it to dread.

Shes been struggling to get air. I saw it when I was there last. A few steps would wind her. Our visit far more sedintary than the typical hustle bustle errand running non stop on the go paced visit we usually have. Yes, grandma has passed and that was exhausting and a little slow downto a walk would be expected but this was a crawl. After I left there was a pneumonia diagnosis and a referal to the specialist as she has had pheumonia a few times in the last few years. She had been in to see him before, many many years before, and at that time he suspected from xrays that she had a minor fungal lung disease called MAC. These xrays confirmed it. It is a very very rare condition were your lungs (due to a severly comrpomised autoimmune system) become a host to a fungus that lives in soil, blows on the wind, and can be found in raindrops. Once it takes hold it can not be easily rooted out. The "cure" is years of mega doses of antibiotics.. antibiotics that she is deathly allergic to or that will make her suseptible to something else that will kill her. The prognosis is gloomy (its a death sentence is agonizing with the timing depending on how fast it progresses) but the dr is chipper getting to be involved in such a special case. Some labs were done and she was sent home to process.

The results came back yesterday. Yes MAC is present in her system but it is not active. She has pneumonia after all and is not teetering towards death as quickly as we were thinking. Not that pneumonia isnt deadly but she can and will rebound from it.

It is a huge relief.

In other happy news, it looks like my daughter and her boyfriend have lined up an apartment for June. The paperwork will be finished up this weekend to secure it.

That too is a relief.

Deep breathes of gratitude.