Catching Up, Celiac and Lots of Needles

I just realized I haven't blogged in forever...well okay, two weeks, but it feels like forever. I just haven't felt really well and I got behind. I've been a pretty healthy person most of my life so the last 7 weeks or so have been extremely miserable and annoying for me. It all started out with my heart racing when I laid down at night. I went to the dr. and they did an EKG and said it was fine. I've been known to produce a little too much adrenaline so they put me on a beta blocker and drew some blood. That's where the fun begins. My labs came back showing elevated liver enzymes, which prompted my dr. to draw MORE blood and schedule a liver ultrasound. In the meantime I was sick with bronchitis, walking pneumonia and some awful stomach symptoms that I won't detail here.

I felt okay after the Z-pack, but my cough never really went away and a week later I started spiking a fever again. So, off the to the urgent treatment center I went where the dr. told me that she wasn't concerned with my 100 degree temp and that it was probably all allergies. WRONG ANSWER. She told me to call back if my fever didn't go down or if I felt worse. Well a week later, I was still coughing, still feverish so I called. She called in a 10 day course of high-dose amoxycillin. That should've killed basically any bug in my body, right? Eight days into that, I still had fever at night and they did a monospot test on me, which came back negative.

Meanwhile, I had the ultrasound that showed my liver was fine, but my spleen was enlarged. At my followup with my real dr. she said she thought I could still have mono and they had not tested me for the right things at the UTC (imagine that). So you guessed it, more blood drawn. This time the results came back showing I had elevated lymphocytes in my blood, which my dr. thought pointed even more to a viral infection. The Epstein Barr virus test (for mono) came back negative, so we're stumped. She was ready to punt me to hematology, but when I told her I hadn't had fever in 4 or 5 days and that I was feeling a lot better, she decided to ...you guessed it, draw more blood. SO tomorrow I have to get another CBC with differential to determine if the lymphocytes have improved.

Oh and I have to mention that in the midst of all this I went gluten-free and it solved all my stomach issues that I've had since Zachary was born. My dr. has not yet fully addressed the gluten problem, but I'll likely get a celiac disease diagnosis before this is all over. So now my theory is that the celiac disease (gluten intolerance) has depressed my immune system so much that my body was just fed up and decided to protest by accepting each and every infection to cross my path. Eating gluten free is a challenge and at times very depressing, however, I'm dealing with it and it's been a month of strict adherence and I KNOW it's helped already.

Yes I'm still nervous about my big ol' spleen and my high lymphocytes, but I truly believe the prayers of God's people have carried me this far and He is not going to let me go now. Whatever is to come, I will face it with the Lord holding me the whole way. I pray that God answers the prayers so many of you and other friends and family have lifted up for my complete healing very soon. I know it's working! I even had the energy to cook supper last night and play outside with Zach. Lately all I've wanted to do is sit on the couch or sleep so this is a huge step.