Regarding Medical Issues

Alright.
I have a rather lengthy medical history.  In fact, I am still dealing with medical issues to this day.

I was born without part of my esophagus. (In case some are unaware, the esophagus is part of the digestive system.)  For the better part of the first 5 years of my life, I was in and out of the hospital going through around 14 or so surgeries.  For a a few of those years, I had a feeding tube which I had to be fed through.  They fixed the issue by taking part of my colon and using it to connect the two pieces in the September before my fifth birthday.  Despite this being fixed, I still have periodic issues with digestive stuff and occasionally swallowing certain foods.  More recently, I've had an issue with coughing up a lot of mucus due to issues from this and sinus related issues.  There were some other issues from the surgeries that were unfortunate side effects including a bit of nerve damage and some other stuff.  To my knowledge, I was among the first kids to go through the surgery to fix my esophagus but I am told it is now a common procedure.  I'd love to know more on that from a medical professional.  However, I don't have a full list of the surgeries and don't know the name of that particular one.  As I will touch on in a bit, getting the information is even more complicated than that.

I also have thoracic scoliosis.  While I don't know for sure, I suspect some of the development of this is due to the amount and types of surgeries I had when I was younger.  What I do know is that I am in varying degree of pain about 24/7 and much of it is from pain caused this and in my neck and shoulder area.  I have seen a few doctors on this over the years and basically been told that it is not operable.  More recently, due to lung issues, surgeries might be even more risky.

In addition, I've had additional surgeries.  Two eye surgeries, a double hernia surgery, two dental surgeries.  And well... I could be missing one or two things there.  Between the double hernia surgery and the thoracic scoliosis, I have been told I have some "minor nerve damage" but I've been skeptical of that explanation of things and it has never been diagnosed formally.  Despite the eye surgeries, I still have eye issues.  Some of those issues have been more "recent" and have developed in the past five years.

About the lung stuff

First off, I am a non-smoker. I've had one cigarette my entire life and didn't care for it.  Second, I have a history of having had "childhood asthma" or "asthma" which was diagnosed in my teens.  This is one reason why I have opted for the most part not to smoke (other than the one cigarette and there is a story to that one cigarette I will tell at some point).  Having said that, most of my respiratory issues were more or less being controlled fairly well for a number of years.  In fact, I didn't have a LOT of issues from them throughout my early 20s to mid 30s.  There were some issues but they were largely few and far between.

Both in October 2009 and May of 2012, I was hospitalized with "severe respiratory infections" at a local hospital near whee I am currently living.  The latter of the two hospital stay was contributed at the time to finding some severe mold, dust, and mildew while cleaning out some stuff at my father's place. Aside from that, any sort of issues that I was having was attributed though to the "history of asthma" and nothing else was looked at seriously.  When I began having issues in 2014 and went to see an "asthma doctor" the guy said that what ever was going was not asthma related and "he didn't know what it was".  (By all accounts, I probably have a potential law suit against the clinic I was using as my general practice due to negligence.) I was stuck using the facility due to losing my insurance and the place was all I could afford.  I was working freelance at that point which made getting insurance all the more difficult.  Finally at the end of 2016, I was able to see a pulmonary specialist who provided some insight into what was wrong.  However, it was suggested I get referred to someone by my new general practice doctor when I managed to get insurance again at the beginning of 2017. 

In May of 2017, I was hospitalized with lung issues a third time with similar issues but worse than the previous two times.  Instead of the more locally located hospital, I was taken to a hospital near where my new pulmonary specialist was located.  Initially, they thought it to be pneumonia related.  It turned out to be something else. What was believed to have been a "recurrence of childhood asthma" for a number of years was a misdiagnosis. I have Stage 3 COPD / emphysema.  I get why the misdiagnosis occurred.  As I mentioned, I am a non-smoker which is the most common factor leading to COPD / Emphysema.  There is also the factor that my scoliosis is believed to have increased the damaged my left lung.  In fact, my entire lung function is around an average of the 33-35% mark and lower when I had been admitted.  Since then, it's been up to 40% a time or two but that is considered a good day at this point.

At the hospital, my pulmonologist recommended that I apply for disability.  Currently the process is being appealed by an attorney.  I'm not enthused by the prospect of it but it is one of those things that I know is something that that need to be addressed.  Here's the thing, the idea of being classified as "disabled" at the age of 42 and even more devalued than you already have felt at various times over the past 18 years (if not longer) is depressing to say the least.  Having had a run of a few years in that period where you did feel valued and felt productive, which I did to some extent while doing the Film, TV, and related video stuff, then all of a sudden not being able to do that anymore adds to that depression even more.  I digress a bit on this but much of this is where the current issues with my health are at the moment.  

The last thing to note on this is that much of my medical were records were lost over a decade ago.  I'm having to get a lot of stuff redocumented and for that matter properly documented.  As I mentioned, the place I was using as a general practice in 2010 not only didn't bother to get any records of mine previously but didn't keep very detailed records of anything while I was there.  I'm finding that some of the stuff that had been documented may have not been accurate.  Basically meaning that there may have been misdiagnosed stuff over the years.  Don't be surprised if there are some update blogs on this topic.  There will definitely be some blogs regarding updates and rather or not the disability case goes through or if some other path happens.

Anyways!! Generally, I try to stay relatively positive on the matter.  I get accused of being "angry" or "negative" on occasion but I think a lot of that is due to the other person's perspective.  Usually if I am coming off as "angry" it is usually due to the amount of pain I am in at the moment.  I don't like taking pain medication, I usually just opt to suffer through it. 

Alright that is enough about this topic.  As I said, there will be update blogs in the future.
Though at the moment, I am gonna be working on some other blogs.  Thanks for reading.

Cheers.