The Everyday: 

Went to my primary doctor yesterday because since the weekend I've been feeling awful. First, my asthma, which had been behaving for months, suddenly flared up with a major attack. The attacks kept coming through the weekend and then I started feeling like I was getting the flu. Long and short of it is that I don't have the flu - I have the flu's cousin. Something that has been going around for the past 5 weeks in southern NJ. The pain of the flu/cousin to the flu sadly only makes the pain of lymphedema worse. The doctor is being aggressive because as we know the lymphatic system is how the bad in our system gets out of our bodies. Lymphedema means your lymphatic system is already compromised, if we don't get a handle on this virus, well then, I could end up in the hospital. 

This diagnoses explains a lot. The day before I saw my doctor I had a crying spell from 4pm in the afternoon until the next day, off and on. I don't usually cry unless there is rain. But the pain was so severe nothing that I did could give me any relief. They had me come in right away because we don't mess around with anything that could potentially make the lymphedema flare up even worse. 

So, until I feel a bit better to organize the thoughts in my head, I'll have to wait to post part two of Health Crisis. I'm hoping to get the Christmas tree up this weekend, if I can...

There is one thing - when the doctor tells you to pick up the medications, take them and then GO TO BED - well you do what he says. Off to rest, while the medications have me numb. 

Hope everyone is feeling okay tonight. 

Health Crisis

The Agony Of Lymphedema - A Life Sentence Of Pain, Misunderstanding And The Everyday Struggles Of Trying To Live Day To Day With It

Part One:

The Beginning or when things reached a tipping point:

Three years ago I had a serious health crisis.
A complete system crash.

The beginning of the whole crash began on Halloween night, I was walking back with my son from trick-or-treating and had a severe asthma attack. I stopped walking home and took to inhales from my rescue inhaler, not knowing if I was going to make it the block and a quarter to home.
I made it home but the next three days were agony, with repeated asthma attacks happening several times a day. By November 4th the attacks had worsened, the coughing, the congestion in my chest, the not being able to get a good breath. So, we headed to the ER.
I honestly can't remember everything that happened. My memory is not complete. In fact, I still can't believe how much my memory has been compromised. I was extremely sick and the tests began to figure out what was going on. The first thing they had to rule out was heart failure and so I was transferred after I was stable to another hospital known for its excellence in heart care for a heart cath. It turned out that although my heart was beginning to show some wear from constant asthma attacks over the past few years, there was no plaque to be seen. It seems that asthma attacks had begun to weaken the right chambers of my heart and that I would have to be monitored closely from now on and begin taking heart medication.
One part answered, but it didn't explain my complete system crash and so the tests continued.
When there is such a health crisis as mine the doctors begin at the top of the list and work their way down from the worst scenario, ruling things out until they begin to find all the answers.

My blood pressure was high, I was missing many vitamins and minerals and I began medications for both. Trying different meds until we found ones that helped.

We had to gain control over my asthma because it was completely out of control. I had to get a home nebulizer and begin taking several asthma medications to control the coughing and chest congestion.

My sodium level was very high.

We tried the best we could to back track to how long it had been since things began escalating to the crash. From September on, we figured out that I had been exposed to several things that weakened my immune system in a short amount of time, and each one happened in a cluster so that I had no time to recover from one thing before the next health issue took hold.  My son, even though vaccinated for chicken pox got a mild case that apparently also took me down, even though I had already had them in my late teen years. I had huge swollen lymph glands in my neck and shoulders and quite a few blisters.
The doctors I had before the health crisis misdiagnosed quite a bit, the ER doctors before the crash didn't figure things out or didn't bother and all of it contributed to me crashing. They would send me home with the equivalent of a patch that didn't fix me.

I went to a different hospital system and I got new doctors - and these doctors started helping - instead of just sending me home with a few temporary medications. These doctors started finding
answers.