THE REAL STORY (PART I)
The story actually begins late summer of 2002. I'm training for my third marathon and keep finding myself having trouble breathing. Doctors think it's a form of asthma. No big deal at the time. I kind of wrote it off until it started affecting my job. I'd actually lose my voice often while anchoring our morning show. It was especially noticeable when I'd try to deliver the news to a local radio station over the phone. My voice was breaking up so much--I think it made everyone nervous.
I kept going to the doctor and nothing worked. It was one asthma medication after another. I manage to run the marathon and notice my breathing very labored from mile 5 to maybe 9. I finish, but, the coughing afterwards was very frightening. My voice was almost completely gone. A few weeks later I try to run again and can hardly do five miles without excruciating pain in my chest. Soon, I just couldn't run at all. Walking up a flight of stairs took everything I had. The inhalers were NOT helping.
I decide maybe it's my heart. I had open heart surgery in 1999 to repair a hole in my heart and a defective valve. The valve could go bad again...I was sure that's what happened. But, the cardiologist says that's not it either.
Finally, I'm sent to a wonderful lung specialist--chest x-rays in hand. The specialist listens to my lungs, gets a strange look on his face, and says something is wrong. He puts up my x-rays and says "do you see all this?" My lungs are packed full of some sort of disease. He doesn't THINK its cancer. By the next visit just talking was becoming very difficult...I was developing spasms that wouldn't allow me to get a sentence out without gasping. I'm told I have to have an open lung biopsy. That's right, doctors are going to cut me again to get into my lung. This time through my side. It's almost as bad as open heart. However, this surgery isn't to make me better....it's to try to figure out what's going on! I end up in the hospital much longer than expected. A chest tube coming out of my back! The lung which the biopsy was taken from kept leaking!
Finally, I get home a couple days before Christmas. Still no answer about what I was suffering from even though the biopsy was sent to other hospitals for analysis including, I'm told, the Mayo Clinic. My doctor did not understand the spasms. They'd only stop temporarily with special breathing treatments. My question again and again was "am I going to live?" The doctor wasn't able to give an answer. Finally, I asked about a lung transplant. He said "one step at a time."
The New Year goes by, still no determination what I was suffering from, no determination on whether I was going to make it. In the meantime, I was put on a huge dose of prednisone, 60 mg. That brought the swelling in the lungs down which minimized the spasms. I go back to work and get through the morning shows thanks to some compassion from the producer. She wouldn't have me read too many stories at a time.
Finally, it's determined I have a rare and very serious disease related to tuberculosis. It apparently is the result of spending so much time in very moist environments while marathon training. I spent a lot of time in gyms and in hot tubs treating muscle soreness. For some reason my immune system couldn't handle it. Doctors in my town never saw this disease before so my treatment was kind of experimental. I was loaded with very expensive antibiotics and the steroids kept on coming.
My weight was the lowest it's been since I was 13. We were all just praying. Then, one morning I'm driving to work and feel like I'm drowning! I remember asking God just to let me know if was going to die or not. I couldn't take it anymore. I went through the day at work, then I go to the hospital for a scheduled CT scan. Part of my lung had collapsed. It was leaking air into my chest cavity. That air on the outside of my lung was crushing the lung itself. The doctor has to get the air out of the chest cavity to re-inflate the lung. He stuck a HUGE needle into my chest to pull the air out. It worked! Then, he takes a close look at the test results. "Look at this!" he tells me. "It's working, your lungs are clearing!" He was talking about the drug treatment for the disease. I say "I'm going to live?!" He says "yes, my dear, you are going to live!!!"
Indeed, that was the happiest moment of my life. It's been a long, dark haul, weeks of wondering if I was going to make it. My husband and I went from thinking about a will to thinking about a celebration!
Just so happens, what I'm about to do next costs me my life in a different way.
