I signed up a while back to participate in the A to Z Challenge, which is where you write one post a day for 26 days in April. On the first, you write about something that starts with the letter “A”, and so on. I was tied up yesterday all day with a sick hubby at the emergency room of our local hospital, so I am behind right away. Imagine that.
My husband, Fabgrandpa has COPD. In case you don’t know, that means Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Symptoms of COPD include shortness of breath, coughing, and sputum production. It can include chronic bronchitis and emphysema. It usually gets worse the older you get, and is aggravated by smoking, pollution, dust, pollen, and other irritants. Any common cold can turn into bronchitis or pneumonia for Fabgrandpa quite quickly.
He has been coughing more than usual this spring, and the coughing has been preventing him from sleeping. He has been fatigued most days. The last four or five days has been worse than ever, with the coughing seeming to be out of control. He sounds like he is gasping for every breathe, like has been running a marathon during the night.
At the hospital, they gave him a breathing treatment and a steroid shot, and took him for a chest x-ray. There was also an EKG. Both the x-ray and the EKG were good, and when the breathing treatment was completed, Fabgrandpa was already feeling much better. He was discharged with four prescription medications: Prednisone, a Z-pack (antibiotic), a decongestant, and an inhaler that has a combination of things including albuterol. We have been through this before, several times, so we know what to do. Now we just have to wait while the meds do their thing.