Brick Lung

At 2 in the morning today I found myself on the way to the hospital because I couldn't breathe. I've been kind of wheezing the last couple of weeks, likely due to the HUGE pollen counts in this part of the country. But it was pretty startling walking around the house early in the morning knowing that you weren't able to get enough air.
After a few breathing treatments, steroid injections and antibiotic doses, I was released and able to breathe much better. Doc's orders were to rest, put breathing treatments on my regiment for the next couple of hours, and continue the med's. Consequently, I found myself in bed, in a quiet house with a lot of time to think about what was going on inside my chest and how long it would take to get rid of this acute bronchitis.
When I was a kid, my parents purchased "Gray's Book of Anatomy", the classic compilation of pathological illustrations. I used to spend hours looking at the pen and ink drawings of hearts, lungs, legs, bones, etc. All of them were expertly drawn, and colored with two or three very faded and basic colors. The illustration below was a result of what I thought I would find in Mr. Grey's anatomy book under the "Respiratory Failure" section....