Let me start by saying this will probably be more of a rant than anything else as I'm furious.

My right lower and middle lobes are collapsed. In addition, the right lower lobe bronch and the bronch intermedius are not seen which is consistent with collapse or encasement.

I've had serious shortness of breath since the procedure (bronch) was done Nov7th. The only imaging the pulm did was an X-ray on 11/14 which showed what appeared to be a large pleural effusion extending to the right hilum. It further said to consider a CT, but he made me wait until it had been 6 months since my last CT. I saw him the end of Nov, in Jan, and Feb. That's it. He listened to my chest and said normal breath sounds. How can that be with 2/3 of my lung not working on the left side? He did send me to have a needle aspiration of the pleural effusion, but when they did the ultrasound there was no fluid. Red flag anyone.

Okay so I'm guessing what happened is that the bronchs didn't stay open without a stent thus causing no air flow to the the lower and middle lobe. From reading i think they can be reinflated, which is good news. The bad news is that it will require some kind of surgery.

This doc is an interventional pulmonologist and is suppose to know what he's doing, but I feel like I fell between some pretty wide cracks. He even told my Rheumy that some of my breathing problems were due to anxiety. Please, yes I was anxious I COULDN'T BREATH.

So what to do. I have an appointment with another pulmonologist at Mayo next week on the 17th. I saw him last week, but for some reason they didn't get my CT images and I didn't have the latest one to give him. He did a new pulm funct tests and a bunch of blood work. So it will be interesting to get his take on this mess too. If that isn't enough it appears that the CTX hasn't done a thing.

Some of the blood results are: PR3 <.2 no scale, sed rate 25, ANCA must not be back yet as I didn't see it online. I don't know what other ones to look for.

Okay I think I'll close the rant for now. But if anyone has any good advice please feel free to chime in.