Good news, weight loss sliver lining (long 800 words)

Dad is doing alright.  His biggest problem is that he needs 10 liters per minute of oxygen to stay alive.  He is doing very well with occupational and physical therapy.  His lungs need to heal.  He has other neurological problems that largely predated covid.  His eye hand coordination, balance, and ability to read have been problematic over the last year.  As a result he has had difficulty operating a cell phone.  But otherwise, he is improving.

The last two days have been a great improvement for me.  I was discharged from the hospital two days ago!!  At the hospital, my lungs had healed enough that I was on room air (no supplemental oxygen) for 23 hours a day.  I am staying at my parent’s house and my daughter has driven down from Brown University to take care of me.  


My high high school friend Scott helped me out a lot in the hospital.  Normally, I take a vitamin D supplement prescribed by my doctor.  The hospital for some unknown reason would never give me vitamin D.  Scott bought vitamin D for me and brought it to to hospital so that I could take it.  Also, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was low in sodium.  The hospital put me on a low sodium diet — ridiculous.  I also got POTS (see below), and the simplest treatment for POTS is salt.  Scott once again came to my rescue, bringing salt to the hospital which was delivered to my room.  All of my food tased so much better with salt.  I still crave the salt now.  


The last, and perhaps most important thing that Scott did for me was to purchase and deliver a pulse-oximeter which fits on your finger and displays your blood oxygen saturation.  At the hospital, they were measuring my oxygen saturation about 6 times per day.  With my own personal oximeter, I was able to go off of oxygen during the Steelers game on December 7.  The nurse saw that I had removed my oxygen, tested my oxygen level, and then said I could remain on room air (no O2) after the football game.  Having my own oximeter gave me more information which allowed me to experiment safely, seeing it I could stand and seeing which activities caused me to desaturate (e.g. I desaturated ever breakfast).  I also used the oximeter during physical therapy to gage how much activity I could perform.   


After getting out of the hospital, every act I take now is centered about my blood oxygen and blood pressure.  The doctors suspect that I have POTS, Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.  The main consequence is that is hard for me to stand.  When I stand, my heart rate increase from 70 beats per minute to 110.  Sometimes I just need to sit back down again.  Other times, I stand, or hunch for two or three minutes to get used to standing.  Once I get through that transition, I can move around.  Yesterday, I walked around the house in a circle for 10 minutes twice.  I am hoping to walk around the house for 30 minutes today.  Shaving off my hospital beard was very difficult.  I pretty much have to stand while shaving.  It took me about 40 minutes with scissors and razor to remove the beard. Before the pandemic got rolling, I bought an oxygen concentrator (made by Dedakj).  This has been quite helpful.  When I desaturate, which happens with many activities where I move, I can just turn on the oxygen concentrator for 3 minutes, breath the enriched air, and then I am fine.


My mother always encouraged me to look for silver linings in bad times.  I have had a couple of silver linings from Type II diabetes, Lyme disease, and now this 18 days of covid like pneumonia.  After I got type II diabetes, I lost weight and started to exercise walking about 2 miles a day on average.  I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes two years ago.  From 2011 to 2018, I weighed about 225 pounds.  After I got type II diabetes, I lost 20 pounds lowering my weigh to 205 which immensely helped my diabetes.  Last summer I got Lyme disease and lost another 10 pounds to 195.  When I weighed myself this morning the scale said 172!   My pants don’t fit — lol.   I believe that a lower weight will have long term positive health benefits for me, and maybe I can increase my jogging speed with my new slim body.  I’m sure it will take months for me to get back to jogging, but I imagine that it will feel good to jog without the extra 23 pounds that I’ve lost during this pneumonia.  


My life is improving.   :)


Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 12, 2020 at 10:48 AM

    Haine, you are constantly going through medical ordeals, more than one person should ever have to endure. It sounds as if things are improving and I wish you well and hope to see you in person once covid is over. Note that my real email address is tnc@psu.edu. Microsoft makes it difficult for persons with a university email address to purchase an iphone or computer. So the above email address is valid but I seldom look at that site.

    Toby

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownDecember 12, 2020 at 4:29 PM

    Glad you’re out of the hospital and feeling better. Wishing the best for you and your Dad.
    Chuck

    ReplyDelete

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