Good News Day

Yesterday was a day filled with good news, so I'm going to share it.

I had my pulmonologist appointment yesterday. My neurologist wanted the pulmonary function testing done again, now after the pulmonary embolism, to help determine how much of my breathing trouble is due to myasthenia and how much is due to pe. Once again I loved Rush hospital. Seriously, Rush, I'm a tough grader but you get an A in my book. Keep it up. Everyone was just so nice there. The testing lasted about an hour which was very difficult as its basically a work out for your lungs and chest muscles and apparently throat and head and neck and so on... who knew. haha Well I was exhausted by the end of it, but the respiratory therapists walked me through the whole thing, gave me breaks whenever needed, brought me water and even offered me juice! What hospital offers their patients juice during a regular doctor visit?? Ok CDH did that too, love them too. Well, the testing showed that as far as PE, it's not a huge problem in regards to my breathing right now. Unfortunately, the bad news was I scored 25% and 35% for the MG tests... really really really bad. But, that gives an answer! The answer is that my breathing trouble is most likely, almost definitely, due to the MG. Now that's not a good thing of course, but I'm trying to focus on the good things.

The pulmonologist does want to order a sleep study to see how I breathe over night and determine the need for a bipap machine- kinda breathes for you when your muscles have difficulty. He also ordered a diaphram/breathing ultrasound... didn't really know there was such a test. He said this will determine for sure if it's the myasthenia or if there is a chance something else is physically wrong such as during surgery they accidentally cut a nerve... yikes let's hope not I got enough of my fair share in complications. Those tests will be done next month with a follow up and the answers to everything the end of next month.

The better good news was upon returning home, after the hour ride in traffic back which I didn't even mind because Rush is that awesome... I had a message from my hematologist. After not hearing from her for a week after I thought I would, I prayed that she would call with good results. God heard, God answered! All my genetic blood tests are NORMAL!!! That made me so so so happy! Thank you God! This means that my pulmonary embolism was almost definitely not due to anything genetic for in which case I'd have to be on the blood thinners for life. The only other tests left for this are to determine if an underlining autoimmune disease could cause me to be more likely to develop clots in which case I'd also be on blood thinners for life. But we can't do that test til after I stop the blood thinners for this treatment course. So until then I'll put it out of my mind and hope for the best, that it was an isolated incident due to a complication of surgery.

Now that I type this it doesn't sound like as much good news as I made it out to be lol. I guess I was just THAT happy about it.

Lastly, the real Good News... well these past few days I've been hearing this voice (not literally) telling me to start another blog, a Christian blog. I questioned it of course and thought why would I do that when I already have a blog. Well I guess God really wanted me to start a Christian blog because the voice got louder and louder. So today, I listened, and I created a second blog. I really don't know what the plans for it are but if I've learned one thing it's that really all plans are best left up to God. So we'll see where the other blog takes me/you/us. If anyone is interested, the site is Strength by Faith I plan to post my spiritual journey there and my medical journey here. Though I am going to guess some posts will over lap in which case I will post them to both blogs.

So that's that. I'd like to end in saying my thoughts and prayers are with San Antonio right now. More than 9" of rain in 24 hours, tornado warnings, huge amount of flooding where people are rescued off roof tops and highways are shut down... it looks scary. Everyone in San Antonio, stay safe, and remember what SA news tells you "turn around, don't drown!" :) but better yet stay off the roads. I'm guessing the 2 year drought has ended and the 2 year flooding season has begun. Crazy SA! Miss y'all!