On January 10th Brian woke with a pain in his left chest area. He thought it was from sleeping with his arm under him. It was Everything was going pretty well it seemed. I had quit my job in September and was looking for a new job. Brian was 90 days into his new job. Brian was not happy with his work environment and was struggling to decide what to do. He was so depressed from his oldest brother passing away just a month earlier and he hated his job and the field he was in. He wanted a change and just wanted to be happy again. He had hip pain, was a diabetic two, and other than that was pretty healthy. After much discussion Brian and I decided that he would quit his job and get his health in order. On January 11th, I had a final interview with a company I was certain to be hired at and Brian went to work to give his notice, which he did and ended his employment that same day.
Over the next few days, we celebrated our youngest granddaughter Koras 11th birthday and just relaxed over the weekend. I remember it had snowed on Friday and our neighbor Shane unexpectedly came and cleared our driveway and sidewalk. It snowed again the next day and Brian cleared it. We were afraid we would have to cancel Koras party that day due to the snow, but it worked out fine. Brian had mentioned the pain was still in his chest and he was getting worried. We had decided that we were going to the ER on Sunday morning. When Sunday came, we didn't go to the ER, he kept putting it off because the Lions played that night in a play-off game! Later in the day, Brian mentioned that his breathing had gotten worse, and it was a little difficult to breathe. We were definitely going to the ER in the morning.
When Monday morning came, the girls (our granddaughters) were sleeping in due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but I woke them to let them know we were going to the hospital and would be back in a few hours. Once at the hospital, they gave Brian fentanyl for his pain and did a chest X-ray and a CT scan of his lungs. I noticed in his x-ray there was white space below his left lung, we also saw many white speckles all over his lungs. I knew something wasn't right because I had seen this a similar white space when I had a collapsed lung. and the doctor released him to go home. We were told it is most likely pneumonia and to follow-up with his doctor in 30 days to make sure it wasn't cancer. We were surprised at the word cancer but neither of us asked what the doctor meant. We just assumed he meant that pneumonia could turn into lung cancer. We went home with antibiotics and believed everything would be better in 48 hours.
Over the next few days nothing had gotten better and only worse. We were both scared and I was trying to be optimistic. Brian kept telling me it wasn't pneumonia; he had that years ago and he knew these symptoms were very different. His medication did nothing to help and we thought maybe another day is what he needed since it had only been 24 hours. It was absolutely horrifying when he coughed. Any cough or sneeze would cause extreme pain in his chest and back so he couldn't cough because of the pain and any deep breath was just as bad. He would begin coughing and every breath would cause him to hyperventilate in pain so much so that he couldn't breathe. The look terror in his eyes was so overwhelming. Afterward we talked about these episodes, and he shared that he could literally feel his eyes budging out and I shared that it really looked that way too. If you have ever seen a fish out of water gasping for life, that is exactly how Brian looked, literally. It was horrific and I knew there was nothing I could do to help him. I called to make an appointment with a lung specialist for the next week, that was all I could do to help. I hated those moments!
That following Thursday, Jan 18th, we decided to go back to the ER after the girls get on the bus at 7am. Brian was really exhausted and kept putting it off. We have an oximeter, so I tested his oxygen levels, and it was at 88. I knew this was dangerously low and I was panicking inside. Brian wanted to rest a little longer, then he wanted to take a shower before he went. He came back to the living to rest again before taking a shower. I was panicking and I told him he is in extreme danger and needed to get to the hospital. I told him he was so exhausted because his oxygen was low and I'm not going to watch him slowly die in front of me. He understood the seriousness and we drove to the hospital. On our way there, Brian said, " I wonder if we should keep track of everything and journal about it?" I told him I wasn't sure that I would want to go back and read about it, and he said he felt the same, so neither of us did. At the hospital, they gave him fentanyl again then switched to morphine for the lasting effects and to help open his airways. They did new chest X-rays and another CT scan. The doctor came in and said, "I'm sure he (the doctor from our first visit) discussed the nodule in your right lung?" We were both shocked and said no, we told him about the follow-up recommendation, but we were never told about a nodule. It was a very small nodule about 3mm that had not grown since the first visit. The suspicion of cancer came from the irregular shape of the nodule. But because it was so small there was really no concern. There was fluid buildup around Brians lungs, so they drained one and admitted him to have the second lung drained the next day.
During the next few days, we met a lung specialist who also did not think the nodule was at all cancer. Brian was started on new antibiotics and other fluids to kill the infection in his lungs. Nothing was working. The lung specialist was unsure what all the speckles in his lungs were and they did a culture on Brians phlegm to try to determine what the infection was. They still believed he had pneumonia but were not positive. After draining his other lung, his breathing was better again, and the morphine was helping him breath without pain.
During his stay, our oldest daughter (the girl's mom) decided to try to take her life by taking a whole box of Mucinex MD. She was staying at a Christian women's recovery center and had been in treatment for two years. She called me that Saturday extremely high and belligerent. She was telling me all about her trip and how she was in heaven with dad (Brian). I hung up on her and refused to talk to her after this episode. My focus was on Brian and over the years Brian and I came to realize that our daughter would do anything to be the center of attention especially for me. I was shocked that she would do it during a time like this. She hadn't done drugs in two years and suddenly out of nowhere she chose to do this then call me. I refused to give her any attention and kept my focus on Brian.
The lung specialist was really concerned about these speckles in Brians lungs and sent a sample of the fluid from his lungs to be tested. He also decided to do a test where he would put a small camera down Brians throat to view his lungs. Ather to scoping, the specialist came to talk with me about what he saw. He mentioned the nodule and said, "as I mentioned before, there is a 40% chance it is cancer. This was never mentioned before, and I knew by his body language it was cancer. He then shared that he saw a spot that looked suspicious, so he did a scraping and sent it to a lab for testing. We would have the results that Friday. Brian was kept in the hospital about one week when they suddenly decided to discharge him. It was Wednesday January 24th, he called me to tell me that he was going home. I was at a pre-op appointment with Jen, our oldest granddaughter. Jen was seeing her surgeon for an upcoming surgery for scoliosis. I was really happy Brian was coming home so I rushed to the hospital to bring him home. They were sending him home with an oxygen tank and breathing treatments and very little instructions on what was going on or what we needed to do. We were very confused because we didn't have any results back and didn't understand why the sudden release. The only thing we were told is that the culture test showed e-coli pneumonia. We have no idea how this was even possible or existed but at least we knew something, and we believed they discovered what was wrong. We had a follow-up appointment with the lung specialist scheduled for that Friday to discuss the e-coli pneumonia and the results of the scraping he had done. Things were finally looking hopeful.
My story is being shared to help others so please feel free to comment or ask questions.
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