Cough Be Gone!

Every since November I have been bothered by a cough. Not a little polite or “clear your throat” kind of cough but a full-on loud cough. If I happen to have a fever, I get the enjoyment of coughing spasms. It has made it hard to hold a conversation, to paint and….to sip a glass of wine!

In November it was determined that one of my lung tumors might be impeding my airway, so we tried some low-dose radiation to shrink the offending tumor. Ahhhh. My cough was finally gone…for about a week. Then the thought was that there was likely some irritation to the lung lining due to the radiation. The solution was a limited treatment with steroids and they worked marvelously, if I kept them at 40mg. The problem with that is that steroids make one susceptible to infection so they had to wean me off them. The last thing I wanted was a lung infection resulting in pneumonia. Pneumonia could literally be my last thing.

Since I am currently not on treatment, and will soon be heading off on our first vacation in about a year, Dr. P is addressing my ever worsening cough with a big container of 40 mg prednisone to stifle that obnoxious cough. It will be so nice to not cough loudly all the time. To fend off infections he has given me three different drugs to take prophylactically. Woo Hoo, I haven’t used prophylactics since before I was married. This could be a wild vacation!

Jimmy celebrates steroids and prophylactics!

We are still waiting for news on the bio-markers from the biopsy of June 30 of  my liver. Dr. M should have those results soon and then we can see what possibilities are presented by the data. But until then, I’m not coughing!

For today’s painting we have Bella, who resided in Oregon. She liked to hide in the bushes and ferns, but her big golden eyes and white chin, gave her away every time.