Hi Kdmr,
I think everybody has offered you great advice on the emotional issues you may be going through, and I can't add to that. But I'd like to throw out a few ideas in another area.
You said that you didn't feel the same as you did after other tuneups. Your body just went through a really big ordeal. With a chronic and sometimes acute condition plus the very powerful drugs you just took, this has to have a major effect on your body. Many people that have chronic inflammation are also chemically sensitive. And I.V. drugs are very very strong chemicals.
It may not all be "in your mind". Or just coming to terms with the another stage in the disease. It may be, but I'm looking for some other physical things that could be going on with you.
The last time I was on I.V. medicines, was my lowest point in this disease. I was so sick going into the hospital, then 3 weeks of harsh treatments, and then after release I was 96 pounds, FEV1 in the 30's, the horrible hemoptysis had stopped, but there was no way I could work anymore.
But within about a year, my health turned around and I was back at work, gaining back weight, with my pft's going up and my energy returning. How did I do it?
I had a new doctor that addressed how inflammation affected me. It probably was the cause of my exacerbations which eventually turned into infections.
Post-hospital inflammation was keeping me feeling sick all the time as if I still had an infection. Inflammation can throw off all of your metabolism. Like your thyroid for instance, which can create extreme lethargy. In fact, at the moment I have high inflammation having been exposed to smoke. My thyroid test was normal. But my doctor did another test, which I think is for thryroid stimulating hormone which showed that my brain is working extra hard to maintain my thyroid hormone.
Doctors don't always do complete thyroid tests and they will tell very a very fatigued patient that their thyroid is normal, when the most common test measures only thryroid hormone in the blood and not in the tissues.
So maybe you should have full blood tests. By the way, I recently asked for a Vitamin D test and I was severely deficient. Lack of Vitamin D can also cause inflammation.
What turned my health around back after being so sick was addressing inflammation issues, the asthma component of CF, allergies, and irritants which cause the airways to swell, trap mucus with bacteria which causes endless exacerbations and infections.
Maybe if you address some of these issues and thought that it was possible to improve your situation, you can get on-track again and enjoy your life.
