Originally Posted by JohnZ

The doctors and their billion-dollar hospitals damn near killed me - here's my post from the other thread:


Hi, Guys - I'm BAACCKK!

Hi, guys, and you all have my deep appreciation for your thoughts and prayers - that has to be what turned this medical nightmare around, I'm sure. It sure feels good to be back among the living - I came perilously close to the other side in December, after 14 weeks of five separate middle-of-the-night screaming ambulance rides to Emergency admissions for gastrointestinal, heart, lung, and kidney failures (singly, and in combination), only four days at home in 4 months, professional in-patient rehab following hospital discharges, and 8 weeks of in-patient Hospice treatment after the doctors gave up.

Got to me for a while, then I decided it was MY decision, and with the emotional support of the Hospice folks, your thoughts and prayers, and the continuing positive encouragement of my wife Linda and many of my closest friends, about the third week of Hospice my health took a dramatic upturn, I walked for the first time since everything went downhill in early September, the "crisis" in my medical condition faded, and things continued to improve, to the point that I left the outside Hospice facility February 15th, standing up and walking.

I'm on supplemental oxygen 24/7 (concentrators in the house and in the garage office with nasal cannulas - no bottles) and my new buddy-for-life urinary catheter (Foley) in addition to my insulin regimen as a diabetic. There are about 14 other things that aren't working right either, but I'm sticking with what we're doing - it's working, with about half the meds I was on earlier. (-:

It's great to be back! I'm glad I built this garage 48' deep 16 years ago - the new 42'-long ramp up to the door to the kitchen works out just fine. Even Max the dog figured it out! :-)

No wheelchair, although I have one if I need it later - don't have (or need) a power scooter either; I use what they call a "Rollator" (kinda like a Walker, but with 4 wheels, rear brakes, and a hinged/padded seat that covers a storage compartment). I can walk fine without it, but it adds some stability until my balance comes back 100%.

It took me a month to get six months of house stuff caught up (would have been longer except for the great work from my wife Linda and assistance to her from my dear friends Werner Meier and John Davin), and I'll probably never try and "catch up" on CF threads other than this one. I'll drop in from time to time to participate, but not to the extent I used to in the past; I just have to accept that it takes five times longer than it used to to get even simple things done when you're connected to an oxygen line (and dragging it around) 95% of the time and to a Foley 100% of the time. Sure beats the alternative, though!