IVIG is just amazing stuff.

The antibiotics I was on were helping, but definitely not helping enough. This was the fastest growing infection I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve never felt anything like this before.

I was so sure it was over for me. I could tell I was losing the battle. I’m not out of the woods yet, as the pain in my right lung is still very bad, but I’m happy that at least my situation has stabilized, and it’s starting to improve.

I could see it all over so many people’s faces because I don’t have a fever or an elevated wbc, it couldn’t be something as serious as pneumonia. I understand where they’re coming from as well. I’m just a very rare patient.

I wonder if this infection moved so fast, because the wood splinter caused so much blood everywhere, it was a direct line to my blood stream. Or maybe it was just the type of bacteria. (Or both?) I don’t really understand bacteria to be able to figure this one out.

The pain in my lung has been so bad, I’ve actually needed the pain killers. Needed the pain killers super badly. That in and of itself is rare for me, because I usually can suffer through the pain, but this time it was too excruciating.

The right lung pain came on fast and furious, and I was screaming for the pain killers within a few hours.

I know the next few weeks are going to be brutal, and I may have just bought myself some time. This infection was so swift and furious, it may just be holding back to come back swiftly in a week or two.

I’m guessing more IVIG would help again…it’s just getting access to it that’s so scary. I have to figure this out.

I am truly the product of having access to medical care. My paternal grandfather’s brother (who presumably had this immune deficiency as well), died at 17 years old of pneumonia. He didn’t even have a chance to go to college or to have children.

I’ve had pneumonia myself in the past, but I’ve often wondered what it would be like to die of pneumonia. Now I know.

Dying of pneumonia is not pleasant. It is excruciatingly painful, and you feel like you’re drowning but you’re not under water. I don’t know if there is an easy way to die, but I know pneumonia is not it.

Waking up today and feeling that the liquid in my chest was getting better, was like having a light down from God that today was a day I was blessed. To stay I am a changed woman sounds like a cliche, but having spent a few days headed towards a violent and painful death, and then come back from it is nothing short of a spiritual catharthis.

I know it was the IVIG that turned me around, because I was losing the battle with the antibiotics. I’ve never lost a battle when I had access to antibiotics. Knowing that I was losing the battle was not a good feeling.

Every time I cough it still really hurts, and I’m hoping that’s it’s just residual pain and not the infection lingering around to roar its ugly head in a week or two.

At least for right now, the pain is not getting worse.

Time will only tell…