Prednisone it is...

Last Thursday night as we packed for our Florida vacation the phone rang and it was Dr. Cohen. She had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Adl and wanted to discuss my concern regarding the use of prednisone to treat my lungs. Prednisone it shall be for the next four months. I have a choice not to take it but the consequences are unacceptable, unthinkable really.
Prednisone gives me the chance to get rid of the inflammation in my lungs. If I don't get rid of the inflammation in my lungs there is a very likely chance that the inflammation turns to scar tissue which cannot be reversed. If your lung tissue scars it no longer moves. If your lungs can't move...you die.
Of course she was a little nicer in her delivery of this information. It went something like this...

"I know you don't want to gain weight....I know you don't like how it makes you feel....we can try to off set the negative side effects with other medications. I do know that you love your kids and your husband and you will do what you need to do so you can continue to be around for them"

As you can imagine, this is hard information to swallow. I packed, I cried, I packed some more. Before going to bed, Bill said to me that he would support any decision I made as he was sure that if the roles were reversed, I would do the same for him.

At 1:00 in the morning the alarm went off and by 2:15 AM we were in the car starting our long drive down to Florida. Before getting in the car Bill and I hugged for a long time and I told him that if the roles were reversed, I would make him take the medication. There would be no way I would let him chose the unthinkable. He smiled, and hugged me tight and said...honey, you just needed time to get there on your own. If you didn't, I would make you take it too.
In Tennessee I called the lung doctor and told her I had prednisone with me and would start taking it right away. She told me I should wait until after my vacation. Bill and I both took that to mean that although it is a serious condition, maybe it wasn't quite as bad as the picture we had painted if I could wait until after vacation to start.

Tomorrow morning, as promised, I will call the doctor and get started on getting better. In addition to the prednisone I will start pulmonary physical therapy and in four months the CT Scan and Pulmonary Function Tests will be repeated to see how far I have come.

I will keep you posted...thanks for checking in.
Kris