I couldn't make myself go to pulmonary rehab today. Everything seems so futile. I'm embarassed to go out in public at all anymore with my face ballooned up the way it is because of steroids. My hair is falling out. I know they make me more depressed and irritable. I'm still on 20 mg. prednisone a day. Still taking 80 mg of lasix but it doesn't seem to keep up. I still have to keep the oxygen on at night and if I get busy during the day too.

I've considered over and over trying to go to one of the teaching hospitals that specialize in lung disease but it seems so overwhelming that I wouldn't know where to begin. My pulmonologist comes right out and says that he doesn't know, to most things I ask.

This really does sound like a lot of self pity, but I'm slipping and I know it and feel like I've finally just run out of steam. He's tapering down the steroids very slowly but doesn't know if I will have to take them from now on.

When I start to get short of breath I panic. Five times of having ards and being on a ventilator, what are the chances of that happening again? Really good. I am the type of person to "do" something about a bad situation but with this I feel helpless. There's not much that I can do during the course of a day but what I don't feel exhausted.

I sit here in this quiet house all alone and wish that there was someone that I could talk to. I even have an appt. with my counselor today but I don't feel like there's anything I can do. Just wait and wait. I used to be able to get gung ho about doing something like getting a lot of exercise. But now I can't do very much. And I'm just not happy with myself at all. Five years ago I was still playing tennis and working and playing on a softball team, volleyball, wallyball, bowling. Impossible now.

I guess this isn't a post that really requires a response. Just thought that I would throw it out there and throw caution to the wind. It is, after all, who I am. I just don't like that person anymore. The past three years have been spent just recovering from yet another episode. Oh well, enough is enough. I'm so glad that all of you are here on this wonderful site. I don't post much. Guess I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing. Life is not what you make it as the old saying goes. It's more like life has you in a vise grip and you can't control much of anything.