At Home From Trach Surgery

After a week in the hospital, I was able to come home. I went home on a Tuesday around Noon. Later that evening, a home health nurse came to set up my home health care. I had a temp of 101 and really high blood pressure. She became worried and called my doctor. He told her to give me 3 ibprophen and 2 tylenol. I had an appt with him the next day. By that time I was discouraged. It got worse when I coughed most of the night. I woke up extremely tired and hurting from sleeping in the recliner, and coughing so much. I got to my doctor's appt and ended up crying. The receptionist came in and gave me a hug and cried with me. My good friend, and nurse gave me a hug and told me it would be ok. Dr. Black gave me a hug too, after I begged him to just take the trach out, and told me that they would get me through this. That really meant a lot and I went home feeling better. It felt good to know that I had such caring and kind people taking care of me. That night I developed another mucus plug. Ben tried to suction it out, but it got to where I couldn't breath at all, and it wouldn't come out. Ben told Jennifer to call 911. She was on the phone with them when I finally reached up, yanked out the inner canulla, and coughed out the plug. By the time the volunteer responders got there I had gotten the plug out and was sitting in my recliner, wore out. They took my vitals, canceled the ambulance, and left. Things slowly started to get better after that. I still had occasional coughing spells, the bad ones made my head, neck, and shoulders hurt really bad; but they got further and further apart. I got to where I hardly had to suction my trach out at all. I was amazed at how tired I could get in the first few weeks. I could only go a few hours before I was ready for a nap.Now I can go most days without a nap at all. Although on days where I have to go places, like church, I usually end up taking a nap. The past six weeks have been like a roller coaster. It has had many ups and downs, but God has been there through it all and has given me encouragement and the strength that I have needed. He has given me amazing friends who have checked up on me and have been an awesome support system. God has also given me an amazing medical staff. My ENT, and the staff at the Gardendale office, and also my new Rheumatologist, and their infusion staff, and my new primary care doctor, and also my home health nurse, have all been so helpful and comforting. I had my first of 4 IV infusions yesterday and it went well. I also got my new, custom, talking trach about a week ago. After 7 weeks of not being able to talk, it has felt awesome being able to talk again. After these 4 infusions it will be about 2 months before I will see any changes, and will do another set of 4 infusions in November.I'm praying that by the end of the year, the infusions will have taken care of the inflammation in my trachea, and I can get rid of this trach. I know that this might not happen, but this is my goal for now. My next post will be about the lessons that I have learned during these past 2 - 3 months of health problems and trach surgery and recovery.