Bronchiectasis is an incurable chronic progressive lung disease characterized by flaccid, sagging airways that collect mucus, leaving the sufferer open to all kinds of infections including colonization by otherwise “friendly” bacteria.
Treatments may include months-long courses of multiple powerful antibiotics delivered intravenously, anti-inflammatories like steroids, surgery to remove destroyed lung tissue, and, in the very worst cases, lung transplant. Most of us with bronchiectasis keep these disasters at bay by inhaling aerosolized hypertonic saline with a nebulizer. In other words, we salt our lungs. Usually twice a day.
Some of us also cope by designing T-shirts. That’s what I did.
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