Friday, December 31, 2010

Wedding :) ...Relapsed BOOP ?

The weather turned on a fantastic day for our wedding on Saturday 18th Dec.
The morning had started with drizzle and overcast, but by midday the sun was out and stayed that way all day until the rain set in at the end of the evening once people were leaving.

We had a catered "After Party" for 65 friends and family, which went off really well.
Sarah and I found it hard to spread ourselves around the many guests and a few we only saw as they were leaving. Those I have spoken to since have all said they had a great time so I'm guessing we didn't offend anyone by not getting to talk with them all. :)

A couple of pics from the day below..   Others here... Picasa web album




 




Healthwise I'm in a real quandary at the moment. I started running a constant low grade fever a week ago and developed an asthmatic cough. In light of the reduced lung function from my last test it was a reasonable assumption that my BOOP/COP had relapsed. I tripled my dose of prednisone and the fever stopped the next day.
Interestingly the asthmatic cough is made worse by taking Seratide which is a combination of a steroid preventative and a bronchodilator designed to treat asthma. I've switched over to Flixotide which has just the steroid preventer and the cough is much better.

I have an appointment with the respiratory doctor, and lung function tests on Wednesday 5th Jan (early next week) so I'll find out then if it's a relapse of the BOOP lung inflammation. If it is, it looks like I'll be on the dreaded prednisone for a lot longer, if not forever.  sigh.

On top of the possible BOOP relapse I've developed the most annoying skin itch (pruritus). It's been getting slowly worse over the last six months until now it's almost unbearable. It's worse at night as the steroids wear off. I used to have a similar itch when my Hodgkins Lymphoma was active. So that's got me worried too. There are no other Hodgkins symptoms, however prednisone could well be masking them. I'm not scheduled to see the haematologist until the middle of march, and I've seen no sign of an appointment for the CT scan, despite emailing the haematologist and reminding him.

So it's somewhat frustrating to start 2011 with possible relapses of both BOOP and Lymphoma hanging over my head. I'll post an update next week after I've had the lung function tests.

Despite everything I'm determined that 2011 will be another awesome year like 2010. After-all I'm still here 6 years after starting treatment, and I'm still managing to live a full and active life. That's gotta be a good thing!

Happy New Year and all the best for 2011  !!    ...Ron

1 comment:

Unknown said...

congratulations, Ron!

best wishes

Richard Powell