Last July, I came down with a cough that ended up lingering for over a month. I was back in Japan by myself for a few weeks, having just visited family in the US. With my wife and kids still in America, I was going out of my mind. I was having trouble breathing, making me anxious and depriving me of a lot of sleep. I went to various hospitals and saw many doctors, who each seemed to have a different opinion about my state. In short, I had no idea what was wrong with me.
At one of the hospitals, a doctor suggested that I might have asthma. My symptoms were consistent with those of asthma, but I had never heard of adult onset asthma before, so I was a bit baffled. I saw another doctor, who repeated the first doctor's opinion that I had asthma. For the last few months, I've been taking a few different asthma medications. The inhaler itself never really seemed to have much of an effect, but the allergy pill and anti-anxiety med curbed some of the side effects and allowed me to sleep, so I continued going to the doctor, consigned to my future as an asthmatic.
Even though the breathing and anxiety problems were somewhat controlled, I've been sick a lot over the past few months--a lot more so than usual. I've always chalked it up to working around hundreds of kids, who all carry their own special germs to spread.
About three of four weeks ago, I came down with a cough almost exactly like the one I had last July. It has lingered since, leading to a lot more sick days than I'd like. Ready to finally put this beast to rest, I went to a doctor again a couple days ago to see if there was anything we could do about my condition. I'm pretty confident that it was a good choice.
Doctor Fujiwara at Imabari DaiIchi hospital recommended that I get a CT scan from my brow down to my chest to see what was going on. They had me lie on my back on a moving table (like any other CT scan) with my arms high above my head while they scanned my insides. It took a considerable amount of willpower to keep completely still. It's strange how you feel every itch when you're not allowed to scratch them. To keep myself distracted, I imagined shooting through a vacuum tube in one of those space-age personal transport pods you see in science fiction shows.
When the results came in, it showed that one side of my head was plugged up. The sinuses on one side of my face are completely blocked, which supposedly causes all of the problems I've been experiencing over the last 8 months or so. My bronchial tubes are inflamed as a result, and the doctor also mentioned something about empyema. So, I've got bronchitis as a result of chronic sinusitis and empyema. Sinusitis is actually pretty common, but it can get so bad that it greatly affects the rest of the body. The treatment plan will last at least a month, and likely up to 90 days.
While that was all somewhat surprising, the bombshell came at the end of my checkup. Dr. Fujiwara says I don't have asthma. All of the asthma-like symptoms that I'm experiencing can all supposedly be explained by my sinus problems. As much as I'd like to take this diagnosis and run with it, the differing opinions about my condition leave a non-trivial amount of doubt. One thing that makes me want to believe the current diagnosis is that I actually got a CT scan with this doctor, whereas the others took inconclusive chest x-rays and theorized that I probably have asthma. I saw the CT photos with my own eyes, so I know for sure that I do have sinus problems. CT scans don't seem to be used for asthma detection, though, so I don't know how he could know that I don't have asthma.
At this point, I'm going to just go through with the sinus treatment and believe that I don't have asthma. I'm hoping that doing so will take care of all the asthma-like symptoms and get me to my previous healthy state.
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