By day three the three of us were still exhausted. We were getting up to go to the clinic early every morning, staying at the hospital all day long, leaving and running errands, and getting back to the house just in time for dinner with the family we are staying with or other friends here in the city. Basically we were getting to bed super late (more so by choice) and waking up super early (not by choice at all J. At any rate, day three was the pulmonology consult (lung doctor).
We didn’t actually have an appointment with Dr. Garland, we were on stand by. That meant we had to be at the hospital by 7:30 to just wait around for a cancellation or no show. So we got there early, checked in, and fell asleep in the waiting room. Ha. We had waited for about 2 hours when a nurse came and told us that we had an 11:00 appointment!! We had been praying all morning that we would get in and God was so good to let that happen. If no one had cancelled that day then we would have had to come back every day at 7:30 to wait to get in but praise God, we got in the first day.
The purpose of seeing a pulmonologist was to check on the status of my lungs and risk of developing an infection or pneumonia. They need to know how easily I could get an infection because of the drug, imuran, they want to put me on for ulcerative colitis. It would suppress my immune system and make it easier for me to develop an infection and if my lungs already looked bad before the drug then they would rule that out as an option. Anyway, that’s why I was seeing Dr. Garland.
Our consultation with him went really well, just the same as the others. We talked about my lung history and the numerous cases of pneumonia I have had. Ha. He said my x-rays looked good. There was a bit of scarring in both lungs from an abcess and from my lung collapsing at birth but it was nothing significant. He then explained some of the risks of the imuran and what his recommendation would be as far as whether or not the risk of infection would be worth how much it would help my colon. It all boiled down to the fact that if imuran was going to be the only medicine that would work for me then he didn’t want to keep me from that opportunity as long as I wasn’t at super high risk for infection. He ordered a CT scan of my lungs to check their condition in more detail and then he would decide yay or nay on imuran.
He also then ordered a PPD skin test to see if I would react to different infections if I was exposed to them. The idea behind this is to make sure I react for sure and didn’t get a false negative on my TB skin test. When you have a TB test they inject a small amount of the infection underneath your skin and then check it in a few days to see if you reacted to it or not. If you have had your TB shots then you shouldn’t react to it so it was a good thing that I didn’t react but what we didn’t know is that you can be anergic. That means that you don’t react to anything so that’s how you could get a false negative. So to check and make sure you aren’t anergic they inject 3 more infections underneath your skin, some of which you should react to. So Friday was to be the big day of testing!!
We didn’t actually have an appointment with Dr. Garland, we were on stand by. That meant we had to be at the hospital by 7:30 to just wait around for a cancellation or no show. So we got there early, checked in, and fell asleep in the waiting room. Ha. We had waited for about 2 hours when a nurse came and told us that we had an 11:00 appointment!! We had been praying all morning that we would get in and God was so good to let that happen. If no one had cancelled that day then we would have had to come back every day at 7:30 to wait to get in but praise God, we got in the first day.
The purpose of seeing a pulmonologist was to check on the status of my lungs and risk of developing an infection or pneumonia. They need to know how easily I could get an infection because of the drug, imuran, they want to put me on for ulcerative colitis. It would suppress my immune system and make it easier for me to develop an infection and if my lungs already looked bad before the drug then they would rule that out as an option. Anyway, that’s why I was seeing Dr. Garland.
Our consultation with him went really well, just the same as the others. We talked about my lung history and the numerous cases of pneumonia I have had. Ha. He said my x-rays looked good. There was a bit of scarring in both lungs from an abcess and from my lung collapsing at birth but it was nothing significant. He then explained some of the risks of the imuran and what his recommendation would be as far as whether or not the risk of infection would be worth how much it would help my colon. It all boiled down to the fact that if imuran was going to be the only medicine that would work for me then he didn’t want to keep me from that opportunity as long as I wasn’t at super high risk for infection. He ordered a CT scan of my lungs to check their condition in more detail and then he would decide yay or nay on imuran.
He also then ordered a PPD skin test to see if I would react to different infections if I was exposed to them. The idea behind this is to make sure I react for sure and didn’t get a false negative on my TB skin test. When you have a TB test they inject a small amount of the infection underneath your skin and then check it in a few days to see if you reacted to it or not. If you have had your TB shots then you shouldn’t react to it so it was a good thing that I didn’t react but what we didn’t know is that you can be anergic. That means that you don’t react to anything so that’s how you could get a false negative. So to check and make sure you aren’t anergic they inject 3 more infections underneath your skin, some of which you should react to. So Friday was to be the big day of testing!!
Kailen,
ReplyDeleteI've been reading through your blogs and am so blessed by your faith and encouragement in God. I'll make sure Gracie knows about your blog so she can follow your writing as well. We will be praying for your complete healing ... and that is not an empty prayer promise! :-) Give our love to your family and the folks at New Life. - Pastor Stephen Simpson, Covenant Church of Mobile
There is so much good news to hear in these entries!!!
ReplyDeleteThe most wonderful thing of all, though, is knowing that you're staying positive, and that you're always keeping God in your vision. I am so proud of you and I admire you so much, dear.
I am continuing to pray for you uber much, and I love you to the point of craziness.