Thursday, January 10, 2013

New Year Means New Beginnings

It's been a rough few months for a multitude of reasons (but luckily mostly not health related).

We had some school-related drama that kept Ellie home for almost two months before we finally enrolled her in a different school. (It's early days yet, but so far, she seems much happier. And her new teacher seems to be just what she needed.)

The pneumonia lingered and lingered. When I finally made it to the immunologist last month, the pneumonia had cleared out of my lungs, but my lung function was at just 68 percent. And two nebulizer treatments in his office only brought it up a little bit.

Then, in just the past few weeks, we dealt with lice (I highly recommend Lice Knowing You in Beaverton if you're local and ever need it! It was frighteningly expensive, but worth the money to have it all dealt with at once and have confidence that it was really gone.), a broken furnace, and a mysterious crack in a car's radiator that needed to be replaced.

So although January isn't my usual time to think of new beginnings, we're definitely ready for a change in our luck and hoping the new year brings it.

There are definitely some new beginnings ahead, although in some ways it feels more like I'm recycling than any sense of renewal.

I had my last appointment with my primary care doc today. Sigh. I'm really going to miss her, even though I totally understand why she's leaving her practice.  I dread the thought of starting over with someone new, but c'est la vie.

I saw my hematologist this week. While it will take a week or two to get the results from checking my MGUS levels, the other tests already came back showing I'm anemic again. Not dangerously, and not even as badly as I was a few years ago before I got iron infusions. But likely headed toward more infusions sometime in the next year.

My immunologist wants to put me on three new medicines to replace one old medicine because my lung function, which is normally right around 100 percent, is hovering around 84 percent. Which is good in comparison to where it was a month or so ago, but still feels like I'm short of breath.

So, haven't I been here before? Experimenting with new-to-me medications, looking for the right doctor, anemic and wondering if that's responsible for my increased fatigue levels? 

I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Wishing you all the best in this new year!



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