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Tired, tired, tired: On antibiotics for MAC

Posted by testlady @testlady, Aug 17, 2020

I began treatment with the Big 3 three weeks ago. I take them 3 days a week. Since beginning this treatment, I have experienced extreme exhaustion and a recurring headache. Initially, I panicked that this might indicate Covid 19! Thanks to all the posts I have read, it seems apparent that it is this course of treatment. In addition to the MAC, I have stage 4 metastatic lung cancer. This has made me very,very careful about staying safe from Corona spread. I am presently celebrating my 9 1/2 year anniversary of my lung cancer diagnosis. Up until now, I have had no symptoms of lung cancer or MAC. My PET scan showed some infection in my lungs which was cultured and grew MAC! I am very stressed with this tiredness. Some days, I can barely move!

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Mentor
Sue, Volunteer Mentor | @sueinmn | Aug 29, 2021
In reply to @thumperguy "Sue, I’m confused. I thought I was responding to someone called Testlady. Did I briefly wander..." + (show)
@thumperguy

Sue, I’m confused. I thought I was responding to someone called Testlady. Did I briefly wander into an alternate universe?

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I spy on you all the time!

REPLY
hauoli | @halford | Aug 30, 2021
In reply to @thumperguy "Testlady, you said, "I am very stressed with this tiredness. Some days, I can barely move!"..." + (show)
@thumperguy

Testlady, you said, "I am very stressed with this tiredness. Some days, I can barely move!" Your situation reminds me of a book I read many years ago: "If You Meet the Buddha on the Road Kill Him." It opens with a comment by the author, Sheldon Kopp, a psychotherapist. He recounts an experience with a patient who arrived at Kopp's office and launched into an apparently rather lengthy report; a laundry list of mishaps, misfortunes, and mistakes that had recently beleaguered his daily life. Notwithstanding the fact that the man's woes were credible, when the patient eventually paused Kopp waited several seconds and then said something along the lines of "and you're letting a few little things like this get you down?" I've always considered Kopp's question a masterful use of irony.

So it is in this same spirit of irony that I'll say "and you're letting a few little thing like "stress, tiredness, and barely being able to move get you down.? Feel better soon! Don

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I found rereading Pema Chrodrons book, When Things Fall Apart to get me to not feel as down as I nebulize. Short essays encouraging all of us to keep going and to have a positive attitude as we face our lives.

REPLY
1 reply
thumperguy | @thumperguy | Aug 31, 2021
In reply to @halford "I found rereading Pema Chrodrons book, When Things Fall Apart to get me to not feel..." + (show)
@halford

I found rereading Pema Chrodrons book, When Things Fall Apart to get me to not feel as down as I nebulize. Short essays encouraging all of us to keep going and to have a positive attitude as we face our lives.

Jump to this post

I think that’s worth checking’ out!

REPLY
manorbier | @manorbier | Sep 6, 2021

@testlady Only been on the Big 3 for 10 days I find the evening of the day I take the drugs is worst, and I can do more the following day. At 65 and having lung cancer & MAC I find on humid days I feel as though I have a large wad of cotton wool in my lungs. I have to exercise, feed and muck horses daily, stack 50lb bales of hay and grain bags, weed whacking and bush hogging, but have found a way to do the heavy stuff when I have the most strength because on the bad evenings my muscles refuse to work much at all. It is very frustrating when accustomed to being on the go all day every day but I push myself to get done. I thought I was the norm. but have discovered being on the lung cancer & MAC chat rooms that I am unusual and much fitter than most, but suggest you push yourself to do the things you are used to doing, and save yourself a little during what you know are the worst times. Don't give in to the fatigue, but fight it along with fighting the MAC and beat it! All the best.

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