Ending 2022 - On a Healthier Note.

First I would like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas but especially a Healthier New Year for those that are struggling. I am writing this blog mainly to give people, many people who are suffering now with this awful disease hope. It will be five years next week Dec 2017 since I had my first appointment at NAC. It was a very long 600 mile round trip in the winter but worth it. I had been suffering for five years previously before getting this appointment with Professor Denning. I would like you to read the letter I received after my first appointment, especially where it reads I was in a wheelchair!! Fast forward five years to where I am now and the most recent letter I have received from my recent appointment last month Nov 2022 from my Respiratory Consultant Professor Thomas Fardon at Ninewells Hospital. A lot has happened in the last five years. Eight pneumothorax and two pleurodesis operations performed in Edinburgh, the last one being a success two years ago last month. My aspergillosis is in remission. I don’t take that for granted as I know this time next week I could be back on a respiratory ward because this disease is so unpredictable. Thanks to posaconazole/prednisone and Azithromycin three times a week and following all the help and advice my Respiratory Consultants have given to me, for the moment, I have a life back and for that I am so grateful. I can go shopping, climb a flight of stairs and potter around the house. There is so much hope out there now. Ongoing research, quicker diagnosis, much more awareness. My consultant who has been with me for ten years was made a Professor in September. Very well deserved and recognised for all his hard work. I saw him last month and congratulated him and thanked him for everything he and his team had done for me. He said “Leslee you have had some input, it would have been so easy for you to have given up when you were piling on the stones with the high doses of prednisone, losing your hair on Voriconazole and the bad photosensitivity you also went through that burned your face really badly”. So please please never give up. There is hope and new medications coming out all the time. My wheelchair is now outside in the shed. I am looking forward to Christmas this year. I have spent three of them in hospital over the years. I miss the open log fire and the smell of a cedar wood spiced candle but it isn’t much of a loss compared to keeping me as healthy as I can possibly be. Best Wishes Leslee Trying to think of a song like Jill Fairweather always has on her blogs but she knows so many songs. I’ll use this song because the title “Don’t Come Back” resonates with me at the moment…. (243) Tate McRae - don't come back (Lyric Video) - YouTube