Crispy Fried Lungs, Round Two

Heh, that's kind of an icky image but a friend of mine referred to my surgery that way and it appealed to my, admittedly odd, sense of humor. Hey, there's a reason we're friends. LOL So, if all has gone according to plan, I'll be at the hospital as you read this for the second operation in my lung re-model. As some of you know, I have severe chronic asthma that is not under control. I enrolled in a research study for a new procedure where they burn away, yes burn, some of the excessive smooth muscle in the lungs. All asthmatics have extra smooth lung muscle; the more you have, the worse the asthma. So, in theory, getting rid of it will help reduce the severity of the asthma. I certainly hope so; life would be so much simpler. Below is a pic of a 3D model from my doctor's office of normal and asthmatic lungs. Once upon a time I was normal, don't laugh I really was!, and over the years I've deteriorated into severe.

If everything proceeds smoothly, I'll be at the hospital about eight hours, then back home. Supposedly, most people go back to work the next day. After I had the first procedure, I was out for nine days, developed pneumonia and ended up in the ER. So this time, I took off the rest of the week from work. With luck, that will be all I need and will return to work next Monday.

After this procedure, I have one more. Rather than doing both lungs at one time, they do a portion each time. I don't know when that one will be but at the earliest it would be three weeks from today. I've kept the blog light this week but I've got a few posts planned and I'll likely post health updates on twitter and facebook.

So, that's it. I'll see you all when I get home. 

ETA 9/26: I'm home, coughing and wheezing but not too badly, everything considered. I'm on my couch, watching tv and surfing the net.

I found a pic of what the doctor does while inside my lung, it's from the website for the procedure.

That device you see is the specially designed catheter that "cooks" the muscle so it's thinner and thus, theoretically, less reactive which should reduce the number and severity of flares and attacks. I hope.