December 19, 2025

I know I've been radio silent for a bit recently. Got home a couple days ago from a sudden two week stay in the hospital. Over about two months leading up to that, I started developing a cough that got progressively worse. Then I started having less and less energy, culminating in having to take 10 minute breaks after going up or down one flight of stairs. During a visit with my kidney doctor, he ordered a chest x-ray, and it showed what he thought was the beginnings of pneumonia. So, I went on a course of antibiotics, and things seemed to get better over a couple weeks. And then symptoms came back, and got worse. A couple weeks ago, I was at dialysis, talking to my favorite nurse there about the symptoms I was having, and she seemed very concerned, saying if anything got worse to go to the emergency room immediately. The next morning, I started coughing up blood. So off the the ER at Virginia Mason in downtown Seattle, where all my doctors are anyway. At that point, I was getting so winded just by walking flat ground, I had to ride a wheelchair into the ER check-in. What seemed to be pneumonia turned out not to be an infection at all, but severe pneumonitis as a side effect of my cancer immunotherapy. My ramped up immune system went beyond attacking cancer cells and went for my lungs. If that sounds familiar, it is similar to what happened to me a little over a year ago. Different drug, less places hit, but more severe in the place it did hit. I was looked after on the Progressive Care floor for nearly two weeks, most of the time on a machine that forced oxygen through my nose to my lungs and getting huge doses of IV steroids. Considering how I went in, I improved rather quickly. I've been sent home on oxygen, and moving takes a lot of effort, and lots of breaks to catch my breath and keep my oxygen saturation up. I will never in my life not be aware of my breathing ever again. Anything pulmonary is no joke. Being unable to get enough oxygen to the blood and brain brings everything down to an infinitesimally small focal point. But after good care by a big team of doctors, nurses, patient care techs, and now at home being helped with basically all movement by my mom, I'm doing much better. Somehow, my spirits are staying up through all of this. I have no idea where it's coming from, maybe because I know this is something that will get better. Right now, I'm pretty much relegated to hanging out in bed, resting, and healing, with slow incremental trips out away from the bed. I'm looking forward to taking stairs and walking through the house on my own at some point soon, and to being able to drive that big purple Dodge out in the driveway too.