The Road Back - One Step Closer to Recovery?

health and recovery Sep 15, 2025

So they rammed a scope down the old gullet this morning. It wasn't bad. I stayed at the hospital all night -- didn't sleep much. A pitiful old woman was in the next room crying out all night, unable to breathe. There may be some dementia involved. I felt sorry for her. There are people in this pulmonary unit in pretty bad shape. So I watched TV, worked on my laptop, read a little bit, watched more TV -- an old monster movie on AMC -- and slept an hour at a time for about 4 hours or so.

I had to warn the nurses and remind the doctor about my powerful gag reflex. I've been through two scopes in the past year and a half that went horribly. Even though they tried to numb my throat, I gagged and choked all the way through the procedure. So they thanked me for warning them this morning. Once they hit me with the happy juice, I wasn't too aware during the scope. I remember coughing a lot, and they told me to try to stop, but I was fading in and out, seeing monitors that--without my glasses or contacts--looked like a psychedelic movie.

The photo here shows me after I woke up. The pictures are places in my left lung that are raw and bleeding. The doctor said that when he poked the area it bled. Needless to say, coughing or just about anything can trigger a bleeding spell. He treated the area with epinephrine to shrink the area and try to let it heal again, but the next step is the Cleveland Clinic, where they'll go in and hopefully cauterize the area so it will stop bleeding and heal.

I feel pretty good about this. The bad news is I need to cut back on my tai chi and kung-fu activity for a week or two--maybe more. Fortunately, I have a lot of good stuff to edit for the online school and a newly expanded chi kung DVD. I'm going to keep the lungs quiet so that area isn't stressed by hard activity. Yeah. I swear I'll cut back. :)

I'm looking forward to getting this taken care of in Cleveland and hope they can shoehorn me in within a month or two.

They're keeping me for another night here at the hospital to see if there's more bleeding in the lungs. Maybe I can get Nancy to smuggle in some cabernet tonight. :)

--by Ken Gullette

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Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

The Road Back - One Step Closer to Recovery?

Try Two Weeks Free and Get Step-by-Step Training in Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua from Basic to Advanced Skills with No Mystical Mumbo-Jumbo

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