Well, that took longer than I thought it would!

From Jim Gilliam's blog

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September 6, 2005 1:06 PM

I got out of the hospital yesterday. You can read the details of what happened with the lung biopsy on the wiki; I should have the long-awaited results from pathology in a few hours.

Three great pieces of news on the possibility of a lung transplant.

1. The guy in charge of lung transplants at Cedars-Sinai thinks I would probably be a good candidate -- should I need one -- despite my cancer history.

2. I would get a lung sooner than others because I am so tall. I can handle a big lung or a small lung, whereas a shorter person could only handle a smaller lung. Finally, years of bumping my head on doorways pays off!!

3. My lung surgeon thinks I may not need a lung transplant right away. I may be able to go on for a bit like this, and get one later when things get worse. He tends to be more optimistic than my lung doctor, but this is something that I had been wondering for awhile.

Also, I haven't coughed at all since my operation. Two theories: 1. I got antibiotics the entire time in the hospital.. maybe that got rid of an infection causing the cough? or 2. I haven't been able to move around as much, so I'm not stressing the lungs.

Some of the bad news is that my breathing is even worse than before the surgery. I imagine this is normal after having a lung biopsy, but having to work to just get back to my 25% lung capacity is rough. It takes all I've got to get to the bathroom and back into bed. Don't worry, my parents (and my friend Ramin!) are taking great care of me.

Thanks to everyone who posted their thoughts on the blog here and on my step mom's blog. She read all of them to me while I was in the hospital and it kept my spirits up. Overall, it was a pretty standard hospital stay, the good nurses, the bad ones, and the amazing ones. Maggie had a great idea -- people rate restaurants, there should be a RateMyNurse.com so we can give props to the best of this profession.