Chronology of Illness - 2009 

Dennis appeared to be doing great in January and February. His overall health was good but his attitude has not improved. He is still quite paranoid about his oxygen supply even though there has never been an incident of him running out. We also learned at the end of 2008 that he would have to change to a different pulmonary doctor because of some administrative changes at Baylor and he has worried about it daily. His new doctor is Dr. Robert Black with the Texas Lung Center at Baylor. Dr. Black filled in for Dr. Millard many times and was actually the doctor on call when Dennis developed complications after his LVRS in 2005 so he really was not completely new to Dennis. 

Our first doctor visit of 2009 was on March 9th and they put Dennis through all of the breathing tests, X-rays, and lab work. We were not able to schedule the visit with Dr. Parmar on the same date. 

Around March 20th Dennis thought he was getting another infection so he called Dr. Black's office for a prescription. Dr. Black was out of town so one of his associated sent out a ZPak. It appeared to have no benefit and on April 23 we called and asked for another prescription. This time he was sent a 5 day treatment of Levaquin and only 3 Prednisone. On May 6 we called again and this time a prescription for a different antibiotic was called in. This was a very strange episode as Dennis never felt really sick but was coughing up what appeared to be fresh blood sometimes and old blood at other times. We are still no sure just what was going on but it did eventually stop.

Our original visit with Dr. Parmar was scheduled for May 1st, but Dennis was not willing to make the trip due to the "swine" flu scare. He had not received a flu shot this year and was terrified he would catch it if he had to sit in a waiting room at the hospital.

We cancelled the appointment and rescheduled it for the middle of May, which was also cancelled because of the flu scare. Our current appointment is June 15 and I am hoping that Dennis agrees to keep the appointment. 

He is still drinking 9 ounces of Original LIMU each morning and a BluFrog Energy drink with lunch. An update on the effects will be posted to our blog if you would like to follow his progress.