I am bad about writing blog posts. That is said with complete honesty. At some point when I was really working towards a career in writing I began telling my story of living with a disease called Lupus. Quick backstory for those of you who don't care to read archived posts - I was diagnosed in 1993 and told I had about a ten year life expectancy. I get the last laugh on that one.
What prompted me to lay this out is that may of you have traveled this road with me, knowing the adventures of living with a chronic illness. Many of you have no clue what I am talking about or even the fact that I live with this challenge. Many of you have challenges that I do not know of or understand. Enough history.
One of the treatments that has saved my life numerous times (last summer for instance) has been treatment with high doses of Solumedrol. Part of my journey has been coming to terms with the fact that I have Lupus Cerebritis, and only a small percentage of those diagnosed with this autoimmune disease have manifestation in the central nervous system. In short when the disease is active in me medical professionals have needed big guns to swat back the dysfunction. I compare it to needing an elephant gun to kill an elephant since trying to use a fly swatter just pisses the elephant off.
Yesterday I went to see my rheumatologist who I affectionately nicknamed "Mr. Bean" when he first treated me in 2013 during a vacation at St. Joseph's Hospital. I have been experiencing some pain in my left hip for about a month prompting my visit. After talking with the doctor about symptoms and his physical examination, he promptly wrote orders for me to have immediate x rays. He began explaining that the high doses of the medications that have saved my life could be causing femoral necrosis. As he proceeded to tell me the potential horrors of treatment, I tuned out thinking back to Dr. Vandenheede who told me of this mysterious side effect of a medication that was restoring my health probably twenty years ago. It seemed silly to think of those things back then when the land of what if was so far away.
Well guess what? Like going to the bathroom so your food will arrive, I just received a call from the doctor saying there was no obvious evidence of necrosis. Verbal vomit complete.
Sometimes I even invite you to join me on the e-ticket ride.
