Fun & games- Dr's visits SUCK!!!

Last week I called my pulmonologist because my asthma was pretty out of control. I figured he would prescribe prednisone and life would go on its merry little way. I didn't realize its been almost 2 years since my last office visit so the nurse called in the scrip but said I had to come in that week & see the nurse practioner. Ok. I love my Dr. He's very thorough and personable. The nurse practioner is also rather nice but a bit of a know it all. She decided that I needed to have a pulmonary function test done and it had to be this week so the prednisone would still be in my system. I could bring Princess Bear (PB) for the Dr's appointment afterwards but not to the pulmary function test (PFT). Um- hello single mom with a child still on summer vacation! My mom took the day off to watch PB for me. There are all sorts of rules to follow prior to the test. What meds you can take, limit your caffine (just shoot me now!), and don't eat for X amount of time before the test. Most of it was pretty simple but I needed my soda damn it!!!

The test itself was also pretty easy. Put a lovely little clip on your nose and insert HUGE tube into your mouth (think bad dentist visit plus some). You do some breathing exercises and it is recorded. Then you do a breathing treatment and repeat the breathing exercises. I usually use albuterol in my neubulizer and I hate it. The shakes I get afterwards are horrendous and last for hours. On the plus side it opens up my breathing & life usually gets much better. I had mentioned this to the nurse practioner and she switched me to Xopenex (a change that had been made for PB for similar reasons). I hadn't used the Xopenex yet but they used that for the PFT. I don't know how well it will actually work when my breathing is down the drain but the shakes afterwards were considerably lessened. WOOHOO!!! The test showed that my breathing functions are pretty well controlled by the meds I'm on. I then had to wait a bit to meet with my Dr. & the nurse practioner. They then took my vitals and my blood pressure which is normally fine sometimes borderline low was 180/90 and my heartrate was 103 (I've never had an issue with my heartrate before). Keep in mind that this is the medicine that I was LESS shaky on!!! I'm thinking switching meds was a pretty good thing! So that was my bit of excitement for today!