PFT

Turning Back the Clock

March 31, 2012

Yesterday was my hospitalization follow-up from my blockage at the beginning of March. We’ve been really looking forward to it to see how much impact Spiriva and my exercising has made on my PFTs.

If you’ve been following some of my posts on Facebook, I’ve walked and ran 60.9 miles in 60 days. I started by just walking 1/2 mile. Then I upped it to 1 mile and soon added running 100′ or so for a week. Then I upped to 200′ for a week. I’m now able to run (a good 8-minute mile pace) for 1/4 mile and several shorter jogs on my 1.5 mile route. Some days are just for walking and taking photos at an easy pace, just to get out and clear my mind.

I love my new routine, but how much does it like me?

I was really pumped to get my PFT results, so we made our guesses ahead of time. I said I felt like a 46% and Beautiful said 40%. She was saving 42% for me because those who know me know I’m a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fan, so 42 is my favorite number, so she changed her guess to 42% when I didn’t claim it.

I took my first blow somewhat relaxed so I didn’t tighten up and constrict my flow.

39% – my number twice in 2011 and my second to last result. Not bad, up from 35%.

Then I decided to give it a huge effort and blow as hard as I could.

40%

For my last blow, I concentrated on keeping everything wide and open [Read more…]

Annual CF Clinic Visit 2010

November 12, 2010

Today was my annual clinic visit. Not the dreaded annual, but it was not my favorite day, until just about half an hour ago when I found joy despite the bad or discouraging things of the day. I have to preface this with acknowledgment that Sue (my coordinator) told me that I wasn’t allowed to blog about today while I was still sad or upset about the visit. Now that I’ve found my joy, I’ll start writing – you know I’ll still be transparent with you about all of my ups and downs, though. Just know that I still will go to bed a very happy man despite CF and despite some things that made me feel less of myself.

What the annual involves

At the Tampa CF Center at TGH, the annual visit includes a full blood workup, urinalysis, sputum, PFT, doctor consult, dietician, social worker, and chest x-rays. They drew 9 vials of blood in the time it takes me to donate a pint – a hilarious 2 minutes to me. Next is the standard PFT that I showed from my last clinic visit. Then I went to radiology in the main hospital for my x-rays and hoofed it back as soon as I could (about 20 minutes later) for what is usually the doctor. He was running late because they were a doctor down and I got the impression that there was a recent transplant that he was attending to. I got to see the social worker before the doctor, but then it was him (head of pulmonolgy), the dietician, a surprise test, and then a second consult, and off to my next thing. I got there a tad before 7am and was out at 11am, but I’m usually out by 8:30 when both doctors are there and it’s not an annual.

Not a happy camper

My day pretty much started out bad with my PFT results. [Read more…]

Clinic Update, from the Bowels of TGH

March 19, 2010

I’m still in clinic waiting to see the dietician (for obvious reasons regarding the site), even though I’m not scheduled to see her. Let’s take a look at who wins the FEV₁ guessing game, shall we?

The guesses were:

Beautiful: 34% FEV₁ %
Fatboy: 38% FEV₁ %, 120lbs, 98% O₂ sat
Unknown CFer: 36% FEV₁ %,

[Read more…]

Post-IV Clinic Tomorrow Morning

March 18, 2010

Friday morning is my 2-week post-IV clinic appointment. This morning, I weighed 120lbs and I weighed 121 tonight… after… well, #2 and #1. /grin!!! I should be in good form tomorrow morning for several reasons:

I’ve been averaging over ~~3,500 Calories per day (I think that’s low, but oh well)~~. I was right, the Excel sheet was not counting the first 64 cells of my diet list. I’m averaging 4,150 Calories per day.
Checking my calendar, I’ve only missed one treatment in 8 days – today’s Vest because I was gone all day and Beautiful immediately passed out when we got home.
I started AZLI again on Tuesday morning.
My weight is stinking awesome!

Date	Weight	FVC	FVC %	FEV₁	FEV₁ %
2/19/10	114.4	2.1	49%	0.98	27%

Predictions for tomorrow after the jump and feel free to post your predictions in the comments.