In other news

In other news, I decided I can't keep my puppy Joe. My mother can't keep up with my care and house breaking a dog. Luckily the woman I got him from is willing to take him back. I e-mailed her and I'm just waiting for a reply.We love him to death but I don't want to kill mom. I'm going to miss the little shit.

Pneumonia

I still haven't recovered totally from my pneumonia, part of me thinks this is as good as it gets. And for the first time in my 32 years I seemed to develop some sort of outdoor allergy. I may had the allergies for some time but this is the first time I have really noticed.

Shiley 6

It turns out that my concerns about switching from the Shiley size 8 back to a size 6 were for not. The size 6 fit perfectly and I'm far more comfortable. I bought the Alison Krauss & Robert Plant album Rising Sand from itunes. It recently won the Grammy for Album of the Year. It's a very unique sound and quite good.

January

It's now 2009. The New Year did not start so well for me. I was hospitalized for 16 days, starting New Year's Day, with a bad pneumonia which involved my entire left lung. I was in ICU on one of the hospitals fancy vents. The first procedure they did was a bronchioscope, where they would put a camera down my trach to see how bad the pneumonia was and suction all the crap out. But before they could do it, they had to change my trach from a Shiley 6 to an 8 so the doctor could get the scope in. Once that was over with I felt somewhat better. The Shiley 8 doesn't fit very well and air leaks from my stoma like crazy. It also sticks out. I still have it in. I want to go back to the 6 but I'm not sure I can. I'm concerned my stoma is now too stretched out to go back to the 6. Maybe I'm missing something?

When I was discharged I was only home for 3 days before I had to go back. This time I was in for 9 days with pneumonia that was in my right lung. After about 5 days, we discovered it wasn't a second bout of pneumonia but it was my vent malfunctioning. So they sent it back to be replaced which takes 48 hrs roughly. I was released the next day after receiving the new vent and have been home since. I'm about 80-90 % and getting stronger at a pretty good rate.



My sister got me a puppy. He is a day over 2 months old, a Jack Russell/Chihuahua mix also known as a JackChi. I call him Joe. A very nice homecoming gift indeed.