Running low on breath

It's late evening Dec. 7, a Wednesday. I walk the 300 or so feet to my car after finishing work. I can barely catch my breath. I wait a few minutes before cranking the engine for my 31-mile journey home. I'd had an off-and-on nagging cough since summer. Just last week I'd been to the doctor. The antibiotics had done little to rid me of this cough. And now this shortness of breath. Time for another trip to the doctor. ... Early afternoon Dec. 8. The nurse practitioner clamps the oxygen meter on my right index finger ~ it registers 64. It should be 100. "You're going to the hospital," she says. Great! Must be pneumonia. My wife and I will have to cancel our trip to Macon this weekend. OK, at least I'll be well before our scheduled trip to Tybee Island to welcome in the New Year. ... Dec. 9. The lung specialist said we had to consider cancer. What? I quit smoking almost four years ago so I wouldn't have to fear that word. Probably just covering all his bases. Over the next few days it's antibiotics, steroid shots to the stomach, blood test after blood test, and then some more blood tests. I undergo a chest X-ray, a CT scan, a bronchoscopy. Finally, a needle-guided CT scan for a biopsy a week after being admitted to the hospital. It's Thursday, Dec. 15. They are letting me go home, which is welcome news. But news of the biopsy will have to wait until Monday.