A Frosty morning . . . and lungs!

A frosty morning - 14th July! Usually the wind is blowing . . . or it's raining, so we don't get too many of these really.

Source photo here

 If you've read a few of my other posts you'll know I had a a bit of a health scare in August last year. I found this photo online and I've added the red line, the long black arrow and the blue words blocked from here. I was trying to get my head around the scan report which said "Right main pulmonary embolus extending into all distal branches". I then confirmed with the Prof (my consultant) and, yes, my entire right lung was blocked off! I'm not sure exactly where the red line should be, possibly even closer to where the main Pulmonary Artery branches to the right and left - I'm just guessing. So looking at the photo everything to the left of the red line was blocked.

 During my second admission, a couple of days after I was discharged, I asked if I could see an image of the clot and the registrar kindly printed off an image for me. I've drawn the red line and added the words and arrow in green. The senior doctor told me the grey area (within my drawn red line) was the clot. This is a "slice" I think it is called from my CT scan. A friend who is a radiographer took one look and said, "Yes . . . all this should be white!" pointing to the grey area. Other people's scans would look different depending on where their emboli were.

On the surface a frosty morning and lungs do not seem to have anything to do with each other. To me they did though. In the weeks after the embolism I found that cold air hurt as I was breathing. That's what it felt like to me anyway. A scarf around my nose and mouth when I went outside and a heater in the room overnight both helped make life a bit more comfortable until the weather warmed up.