The Main Event

As most of you are aware, I have been trying to recover from the effects of my pulmonary embolism. I find that daily tasks that I use to do without thought are now tiring and cause exhaustion. During the Christmas break I took Chase to go Christmas shopping. We spent an hour in the mall walking from store to store. I struggled to move through the crowds to keep up with Chase. By the time we got home I was ready to go to bed. Mind you, three months ago I was in the gym trying to better my run time.  So this lack of stamina is really getting to me. I lost weight when I was hospitalized due to no appetite. Finding my appetite has been a great blessing but when I’m not burning the calories I consume, the flab continues to rebuild.  Here I am frustrated because my body feels good but I’m not at a physical point to run marathons to get myself back into shape. 

I am going to post some pictures that will help you all to understand what I went through and a little so that I can cope with the fact that my recovery is slow.  

This is similar to what my plural effusions looked like. The white portion of the lungs reflects the fluid in the lungs. Like this picture, I had fluid on both sides of my chest.

This is the actual fluid removed from the left side of my chest. The procedure done to remove this fluid is called a thoracentesis. I had this procedure performed 3 times, once on my left side and twice on my right. The left side contained 350mL and 1145mL on the right.

Here is a video of the procedure. I passed out completely the first go around. I struggled through the other two.

Any how, this was just a quick fill on what has happened. I'm going to attempt to go to the gym tomorrow. My goal is to take it easy. I would like to walk 1 mile and lift some light weights. I will be checking in with my doctor on the 13th to see if we can set up a more defined exercise plan.