Just need to ramble...
My husband has been smoke free for almost 6 weeks. Initially I said he could buy all the blue cheese crumbles with the extra money. He quit, he had lots of blue cheese crumbles, his a-fib break though was bad. I called his cardiologist, got an increase in medications, got him in for a stress test, discovered Tyramine in the blue cheese is causing the a-fib to break through. Stress test showed no signs of blockage, increased medicine and decrease of blue cheese has helped, but he cannot lay flat because his lungs hurt. He is now learning how to make sushi instead of blue cheese consumption. High sodium (soy sauce) is not helping with edema and the rice/carb consumption over the last 3 months put his A1c up to 8.5- it was 7.9 three months ago and the diabetes medication was increased then and if he cannot get his A1c down by his next visit in December he gets put on insulin. He gets an echo of his heart next week and will see his Cardiologist a couple weeks after. Sometime in the next few days we are going to the furniture store to have him try an adjustable bed to see if he can lay on that without the lung pain, I miss having him near me at night, he has been sleeping in the recliner in the spare room, our dog loves having half the bed to herself, but she will get over it. He does have sleep apnea and an auto immune disorder called myasthenia gravis (MG) that can/does weaken the lung and chest muscles so that could be a factor into what is causing the lung pain as well. Two months ago is neurologist said he could go on a medication that he was in a trial for a couple years ago. It was approved for MG by the FDA so his insurance will cover the cost. It is an infusion every 2 weeks. In the last two months, nurse changed and trying to get it set up so he does not have to drive 4 hrs one way to get it has been challenging. Something else that could help him and his lung pain if it is MG related.
Last week he also saw his eye doctor. He has type 2 diabetis, pre-glaucoma, macular degeneration and had to go in for a visual field exam in the morning before seeing the doctor in the afternoon. The tech who did the first test was talking about wanting to quit and asked how we quit- I mentioned this site and how I used Chantix. My husband quit with the AA steps. I also realized how easy it would be to go back to smoking and I myself had to go through the NOPE and self talk of how it would only hurt me and it was just the old habits saying I could just start back up and not miss a beat. After 10 months. It truly made me realize that I have to always keep my guard up so I do not make that slip. Oh and field corn harvest started yesterday. In a couple of weeks, once my roommate and his brother move to the fields in the neighboring county 30-45 minutes away my husband and I will be team driving one of the truck/trailers to the silo to help keep things moving along. I have not driven a big truck in 11 years, but this is why I kept my CDL active...this will be fun...
