"Why?" do you ask?

Good morning!

This post is coming to you live from my living room after 10 delicious hours of almost entirely uninterrupted sleep!  Karee is going into hour 11 of sleep, along with Ella.  Almost makes me want to weep with relief!

I realize that I haven't spoken about the 'why' behind this whole episode.  As in, how do the doctors explain this?  Well, they have a working theory, but it still feels like a long-shot to me.

7 or 8 years ago, Karee was complaining of, well, the symptoms from which she's continued to suffer - (intermittent) difficulty breathing /poor lung function, and some wheezing.  So, at that time, she was doing some voice work - occupational therapy for voice, basically, with some big wigs at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA), and they recommended she go to National Jewish for some expert medical opinions.  For those not in the Denver area, National Jewish Hospital is the #1 hospital in the country (the galaxy!) for lung related health issues. 

Karee basically spent the summer in and out of National Jewish doing all the possible tests/scans they could find.  They thought that the wheezing came from air crossing a hardened mass at the back of her tongue, but not from anything in her lungs as her lungs looked and sounded fine.  They concluded that she had acid reflux.  Since it's been a while since that particular 'excitement', I don't remember all of the details.  My memory of the event was that after all the tests that measure stomach acid (the 24 hours with a tube down your nose is a really fun way to spend a day...) she did have some acid reflux, but that it wasn't extreme by any measure.  But, they talked us in to her having surgery for it.  So Karee had a 'half-lap-Nissen-Fundoplication' on December twenty-something 2005ish.  I remember it being a rough go- she couldn't eat for a week.  So anyway, this surgery definitely put an end to any acid reflux that she had.

"Gee Steve, that's a weird story to tell, what does that have to do with what's going on now?"  Hey, great question, so glad you asked...

The working theory is that when she was having acid reflux, that it hit her left airway pretty hard, and her body reacted as if it was being attacked, and started to create scar tissue to protect itself.  Then, even though she had surgery to shut down the offending reflux, the body had basically an over enthusiastic response, and didn't realize it could stop creating the scar tissue, and just kept right on doing it.  And doing it some more.  And it kept on doing it until present day when she lost the use of her left lung and it collapsed.

And while I think there are plenty of holes in this theory (I was never convinced of massive acid reflux in the first place) it's the best they have to explain the situation.  I am not sure if I've conveyed this part of the experience - that the doctors have been flummoxed and bamboozled by this since the beginning.  None of this made sense to them.  Not the symptoms, not the x-ray or scans - someone her age and otherwise healthy shouldn't have lung issues like this.  Before cancer was ruled out (yay!) they were saying that they do NOT see lung cancer or lymphoma in middle aged women.  The granuloma argument equally made no sense (as Keith pointed out, it was unlikely she was kidnapped in the middle of the night and forced to go spelunking in Costa Rica!) as Denver is so dry...  While being debriefed after the Thursday procedure, the pulmonologist who scraped away all the scar tissue looked so excited and happy (can a surgeon look 'giddy'?) that it was all 'just' scar tissue, and nothing scarier than that.

We don't know why it happened. If they're working theory is correct, we don't know if the scarring could start up again.  We will be seeing her doctors again this coming week to debrief fully and find out what the next steps are.  She is going to be seeing an E.N.T who apparently specializes in the area of the trachea immediately below the vocal chords, which is right where the stenosis (narrowing) is.  That's the doctor's current concern, is how to remove the stenosis.  During the procedure Thursday they 'stretched it out' and acknowledged that it would be temporary, so it's very possible she'll have to have some more surgery to carve some of that away.  This does not excite us, and we'll hope to be presented with some options. 

Okay, I'm signing off.  It took me half an hour to write that out, and I would like to take advantage of just a few moments of 'alone time' that I've had recently!

Continued thanks for your continuing support!

Steve