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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Trust me, SIX, you'll get nowhere bc you don't have a winnable case. We have “been there and done that“ with our daughter’s catastrophic birth, and lackadaisical followup and misdiagnosis for the first three years of her life and got nowhere.

Even if you were to die, your family couldn't prove malpractice. The best they could get would be "wrongful death".

Find something else to be pissed off about bc this will just eat a hole in your stomach.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by BRENDA:
Just a note. I am at the library because my monitor froze again on Monday. Used it before I went out then when I got back it had turned itself off. Have been trying to warm it up myself to get it working. Paying for help is bordering on the impossible without the bring it in. Easy for them to say. Even the monitor is heavy for me. Every one says it is hard ware. But that is all. Hopefully I can get it running soon and be back.

This has been a really crappy week. Booby prize at mah jong. Was late and the boss got upset. Then I broke tooth yesterday eating cereal. I figure the drilling must have put a crack into it and last night was just enough. Have to call or go in to make an appointment to repair it. This is the only place I can get to because it is the only one I remember my password for. UGH!!! Some one just shoot me.

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You said you had another monitor on your other computer when we were talking about this earlier, Brenda. I knew it was only a matter of time before the monitor or the cord failed on you. If you try the other monitor and it doesn't work, you can also try moving your computer to your TV and using one of the AUX HDMI inputs and using your TV as your monitor until you get a replacement.

Sorry about the tooth. That sucks.

Glad you're alright otherwise, health-wise.

Was getting a little worried about you over here.



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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
BRENDA, I doubt you'll see this, but thanks for the explanation.

And, yeah ... it WAS a bad week!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, about Zpack (azythromycin): it's very resistant to being broken down and excreted, so even after you stop taking it, with a half-life of almost 3 days it'll be in your system and still at an effective concentration for about 7 more days. https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/long-azithromycin-stay-system-af
ter-you-finish-3120142/ You may worry about not being "on" an antibiotic, but it's still in there, doing its job.

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Nice.

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The great thing about Zpack is that it's effective against many bacteria, but also against a special class of bacterium called "mycobacterium" which is incredibly hard to culture and to see under a microscope. Mycobacterium was the origin of a lot of previously unspecified pneumonia.

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Double nice.

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What is the exact wording on the radiology report? Do you have it to refer to? "Vestigial infection" isn't standard medical terminology, but it's possible you have some scarring in your lungs from a previous infection. I have some weird shit in my lungs, calcified nodules that may have been nodes of infection, or possibly granulomas or angiitis or even cancer that got nailed with chemo, as well as larger areas of "changed lung architecture" (scarring) from radiation treatment. I'm reasonably certain you had Covid at one point, which could be the source of your diabetes and may have scarred some areas of your lungs.

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I got it all for you here... Except for the BAD stuff, there's a lot of good stuff on there too. I still think it's 50/50 that this is lung cancer, but I think that it probably hasn't spread yet if it is. Strangely, I think it might be TB as well... Maybe I should stop shopping at ALDI, because that's the only place I can think of that I go where I am regularly in contact with people who would be the most likely to have that, and it's probably where I got the "suspected" Covid-19 infection as well. I haven't really left my house all that much in the last few months, and outside of my buddy's house and visits from my old man, the only other places I've been have been my CVS pharmacy and the Dollar Tree.

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Examination

Description: Chest xray, 2 views

Comparison: None Provided.

Findings:

- The cardiomediastinal silhouette is unremarkable.

- No pleural effusion is noted.

- There is no pneumothorax present.

- The soft tissue and bones are unremarkable for age.

- 8.0 cm left upper lung opacity with a possible cavitary appearance is on the lateral view.


IMPRESSION:

1. 8.0 cm left upper lung opacity with a possible cavitary apperance on the lateral view

2. Differential considerations would include malignancy versus a cavitary infections process.

3. CT recommended for further evaluation.

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Until you hear otherwise, assume the best bc that's the most likely. It's the radiologist's job to note all this stuff, even if they can't tell what it is. (And you'd be surprised how often that happens!)

Just to satisfy my medical nosiness, what color are you coughing up?

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5-6 weeks ago, though rather infrequent at the time, it was a thick green color.

Maybe about a month ago it started changing. Definitely a lot more "fleshy" color. Taste was like rotten chicken nuggets (I dunno where I came up with that, but I haven't been able to eat a chicken nugget since I started coughing like this, and I may never eat them again).

Not too much nasty phlegm at first, but over the last 2.5 weeks it was quite a bit, although there would be 2-3 day periods in between where I didn't cough up anything at all. I'd say that when it was its worst, it was mostly thick and white, with red inside of it. Maybe like a vanilla-strawberry swirl yogurt or something. (Nothing super bright red or anything, but I'm not going to lie to myself and say that it wasn't because of blood and/or necrotic lung tissue).

The night before I started taking the meds (and after I went to the clinic), I had a pretty bad coughing fit that I wasn't able to hold back and I coughed up so much of it in such a short period of time, relative to any point in the past, and I almost vomited. That last cough before I finally got it back under control almost seemd to be acidic, although at that point I may have also been suffering from some acid reflux, which I don't have chronically but when I do get it, it can be quite awful. To note, the very next morning before I went to get the Xray I did have to take a few TUMS for the first time in maybe 3 months because even though I wasn't drinking any coffee I did have some acid reflux.

I still haven't gone back to "normal" color phlegm, but the amount I'm coughing up even after only 1 day on the meds is about 2% of what I was in the 3-4 days before I started taking the meds. But although the color hasn't really improved, I noticed that the awful taste has all but vanished. I do think that overall there is less red in anything now than there was before the meds though. Sometimes it's only been white too. Also, where about 2/3rds of my phlem before would sink like a rock in the water bottle, almost everything I've coughed up since I started taking the meds floats at the top of the water like it should. Not all of it, but most of it.

Strangely, the few rare instances I cough up phlegm now, I dont' really notice any taste at all. But when I do have dry coughs where nothing comes up, I can still taste it faintly.


NOTE: I do think that nobody is probably taking into consideration that if I'm getting help for something it's because I'm literally dying. It's not as if I went to get help immediately and had this 8.0cm opacity overnight. This took months to get to that point.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to look at this, Sigs.


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Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Originally posted by BRENDA:
One monitor is too old and the other one is full of dust, so cleaning it would be a b&tch. Also my tv is too old to do all that stuff with. It's at least 20years old. Have to look at the cords I got and see what I can do.

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This tooth has been repaired before and I don't know if it is repairable again. All I can think is there was another crack in it and all the drilling is what finally let it break.

Yeah. Cough is all gone now. So no worries there.

I know but not much I can do until I figure out a way to sort this all out.

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Cavitary pneumonia, also known as necrotizing pneumonia, is a severe lung infection characterized by the formation of cavities in the lung tissue due to liquefaction and necrosis. It is often caused by bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus, and can lead to serious complications if not treated promptly.

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A cavity has been defined in the radiology literature as (pathologically) “a gas-filled space within a zone of pulmonary consolidation or within a mass or nodule, produced by the expulsion of a necrotic [dead, rotted] part of the lesion via the bronchial tree [coughed up]”

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