Welcome back everyone! I know that it has been more than a month since I last posted, and many of you are wondering about how I am doing with my cough. Well, I still have it. It's been about six weeks now, and I've taken two different antibiotics as well as a cough suppressant and something to get the mucus out of my chest. None of the medications have done anything to help.
I visited the doctor last Thursday, and they told me to go and have a CT scan done of my sinus cavity and of my chest. Here are the results:
STUDY: CT CHEST/THORAX W/CONTRAST
Findings:
The heart and great vessels opacify with contrast normally. An aberrant origin of the left vertebral artery from the aortic arch is demonstrated.
Evaluation of the lung windows demonstrates no air space opacity, pleural effusion, or pulmonary nodule.
Polycystic kidney disease involving the right kidney is demonstrated. A left nephrectomy has been performed. Multifocal low-density lesions are present throughout the liver, compatible with hepatic cysts. Spleen is mildly enlarged, measuring approximately 14 cm in craniocaudal dimension. The osseous structures demonstrate no abnormality. No mediastinal, hilar or axillary adenopathy is seen.
Impression:
1) No acute abnormality is visualized on the CT chest.
2) Polycystic kidney disease involving the right kidney and liver. A left nephrectomy has been performed.
3) Mild splenomegaly.
STUDY: Paranasal sinus CT
Findings:
Bilateral frontal, ethmoid, and sphenoid sinuses are well aerated with no air-fluid levels or mucosal thickening.
Mild mucosal thickening along the medial walls of bilateral maxillary sinuses. Multiple mucosal retention cysts and/or polyps in the bilateral maxillary sinuses with the largest measuring 2 cm in diameter located along the left anterior maxillary sinus wall. Bilateral osteomeatal units are patent.
The cartilaginous nasal septum is midline. Concha bullosa of the left middle turbinate. There is mild right osseous nasal septal deviation with a 3 mm nasal spur with mucosal contact point with the inferior nasal turbinate.
Orbits and visualized intracranial contents are unremarkable.
Impression:
1) Mild mucuosal thickening of the bilateral maxillary sinuses with multiple mucosal retention cysts and/or polyps. Bilateral osteomeatal units are patent.
2) Otherwise, ethmoid, sphenoid and frontal sinuses are unremarkable.
3) Right osseous nasal septal deviation with septal spur.
And, after all of that, you'd probably like me to explain what I learned. Too bad. I learned almost exactly what you did. There's nothing wrong with my chest, and my sinuses might have a problem, but a "specialist" will have to look to confirm.
So, next up is a trip to visit an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist. I've got to make some calls to the hospital tomorrow and see who they have on staff that can poke around inside my head. Hopefully, they won't leave anything up there. I know there's lots of room, but I don't want any rattling.
I've seen the doctor twice in the past two weeks (one for my regular check-up and one for this post-CT checkup). My creatinine was 1.0 and then 1.1 -- both are good numbers. Everything else looks pretty good on my labs, as well.
I think I'll have more to post in a later edition, but for now, I need to cut this one off. Don't want any of my readers falling asleep while they are here.
Tune in next time to find out more about what post-transplant patients are able to do with their vacation time!
473) PKD Day, September 4, 2022
2 years ago
3 comments:
You had the joy of enjoying the yucky stuff. I get to enjoy it again at the end of October. Didn't that just make your life complete? The recovery part of sinus surgery is okay. but you have to be careful, of not blowing your nose and not bending your head for a few days. The reliner becomes your house for a few days.
I've had problems with my sinuses since I was a kid, but didn't know it for a long time. I've been checked for sarcoid, because of my cough. I have nodules that haven't grown, in my lungs.
6I've just received the same kind of report. What is next I don't know. I do have an ENT appointment next week. I really not excited to find out what they have to do. If it's surgery, what is the recovery time? I just had thyroid surgery in early Dec.,so the thought of having surgery again does not appeal to me.
This is in reply to the comment from Anonymous on Jan 8, 2009.
The surgery itself was not really that bad. Recovery, of course, is another thing. They removed all of the gauze from my nose before I left the hospital. I had some plastic nose shaping pieces in my nose for about a week or two, and then they removed those. That was probably the most uncomfortable part.
You can't bend over for a week or two, or your nose REALLY hurts. And, it was several months before my nose was no longer sore to the touch.
It still feels weird if I inhale sharply through my nose. It's not pain, it's just different than it ever has been. I notice that I do not have to blow my nose quite as often as before.
Overall, I am glad that I had this surgery done. Hope you get good news from your ENT.
Given that it is elective surgery, if you do need to have it done, you could always wait until you have had plenty of time to heal from the thyroid surgery before going back into the hospital.
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