Thank you so much for all your responses and you have definitely eased my anxiety going into this procedure. This is a case where this whole thing came out of the blue to me. Almost 3 years ago I had bilateral mastectomies for breast cancer and in 6-month followup my oncologist ordered an abdominal CT to make sure there was no pancreatic involvement (due to an ATM gene mutation). Good news..no pancreatic cancer; the bad news...bronchiectasis with significant mucus plugging, differential includes MAI infection. This was followed up with an abdominal MRI (for a liver lesion) and then a HRCT. These all confirmed the diagnosis radiographically. I suppose the bronch is for identification of the infection or maybe to definitely rule out lung cancer, though he said it was not. I am so glad I was directed to this site, as you all made me feel better about facing the procedure tomorrow. Again, thank you!