Last Updated on November 2, 2022 by Tom Kane

Ever wondered about air and what you would do if you couldn’t catch your breath? Panic I suppose.  It crossed my mind, big time, during the Covid-19 Pandemic, and more so when I started to feel extremely breathless around December 2021. I could breathe, but only seemed to be able to walk a few steps before I had to stop and breathe in as much as possible. Bending down left me very breathless and I was beginning to think Covid-19 had caught up with me.

It turns out it was all down to Lymphoplasmacytic Lymphoma. The Big C had struck. I was lucky, the Lymphoma was treatable and off I went into the land of chemotherapy and all the side effects that manifested on my body.

Now, almost a year later, the air that I breath and swallow still impact my health. The X-Ray above shows little black patches. When I first saw them, I assumed the cancer had spread, having seen, and heard how cancer shows as black areas on some x-rays. Turns out it’s all very benign.

The X-Ray was taken because one of the chemo side effects is constipation, and I’m having dire problems with that. I was burping and farting (never mind the gut-wrenching belly aches) at will. So, this X-Ray was taken to show if there was a problem. There isn’t a problem, but it does show that there’s a lot of air inside me… that’s what the black patches are.

So, things are still on track for my hoped-for outcome of no more chemo from early December 2020 and, also hopefully, the defeat of my Lymphoplasmacytic Lymphoma. It’s like a breath of fresh air (forgive the pun, dear reader) knowing things are moving along in the right direction.

As an aside, the X-Ray was among a multitude of procedures I’ve had, from Colonoscopy to MRI scan and a few others. More on this in a later post.

Air today, gone tomorrow… I hope.

Copyright © Tom Kane 2022

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