Life with a Flare

I am not sure where I am going with this blog post but it will probably end up being a warning to all of those people who bite off more than you can chew like me. I also just need to try to calm my mind that feels like it is going a million miles a minute, as a result my writing may be all over the place. I am thinking writing will help. Tonight I ended up near tears because I lent my pen to someone and they returned it without the cap. On the ground crawling around for the pen cap I realized I may have over done life this week and I needed chocolate or ice cream or more likely both. I wanted to think about all the things that had lead me here so in the future I could prevent such break downs from occurring in the future. First off there is some medical stuff that is definitely going in to play here. A few weeks after being diagnosed with Sjogren's my POTS symptoms were acting up and I email rheum instead of cardio this time since we now know the cause. We decided to see ...

Another title for this post could be learn from my mistakes. My freshman year I did not inform my professors of my chronic illnesses until I am in the ER and could not make the deadline for two papers or to the respective classes the next day my first semester. Thankfully those professors were very understanding. You would think I would have learned but second semester I waited as well and found myself on the bathroom ground working on a final when I should have been in the ER because that professor was considerably less understanding although maybe she would have been had I mentioned something before that night. Anyway back to the topic at hand. From my first ER trip in college, too bad it was far from my last... First off as I mentioned in my previous post make sure you go to your campus disability office with a letter from your doctor explaining your symptoms and/or illness, what accommodations you need (my school asked if I need anything not on the list so it may have not bee...

The first few days after moving in can be overwhelming for any college student but having a chronic illness can take it to a whole new level. Here are some tips to make your first couple weeks on campus successful- Set up your medication at a close to campus pharmacy. If there is a retail chain that is both near your school and your home I suggest going there over student health. By using a chain pharmacy it makes getting refills at home or at school easier.  Set guidelines and boundaries with your roommate(s). This is a good time to have a more in-depth conversation about your health and explain your chronic illness. Communicate how that may effect living with you, such as what times/how much sleep you need, if you have to be extra careful about being sick due to being immunosupprested, allergies, etc. Before classes start walk through the campus and buildings to see where all your classes are. Make sure you know how long it takes to get to each class without having to rush ...

As I embark on my senior year in just a few weeks I realize I have almost made it. At this point in my life of balancing being a typical college student and battling for my health every day I feel uniquely qualified to advice incoming freshman on how to do college without totally neglecting your health. Things to do in the weeks leading up to your move in date- Decide on if you are going to see specialists as well as a PCP by your school or if you are going to continue to see your old doctors. Many factors may effect this such as how far away your school is to your hometown, if your new school is in a city (making it more accessible to good doctors), and how often you plan on visiting home. If you do plan on establishing yourself with new doctors you should be setting up appointments now because waiting list can be long and you want to be an established patient ASAP in case you have an emergency. If you do not plan on having a doctor near your school make sure to research student h...

Today is Sjogren's Syndrome awareness day. Unlike other disease you will not see a lot of facebook profile pictures with a ribbon overlay or products in the grocery story with ribbons on their labels to announce a percentage of proceeds going to research. The majority of people diagnosed with the disease will probably stay silent. I however refuse to be one of them. Sjogren's is one of the most common autoimmune disease, effecting an estimated 4 million Americans, yet most people have never heard of it and most of the people who have do not truly grasp the effects of the disease. I was one of these people until recently. All I knew was Sjogren's is an autoimmune disease that cause dry eyes and mouths and possible some minor joint pain. I did not know that is could cause enough joint damage to result in surgeries, I did not know if could cause autonomic neuropathy to the point of needing a feeding tube and central line. When I was diagnosed with Sjogren's 6 wee...

A little over a week after Sjogren's was confirmed I had an appointment with my rheumatologist. My head was filled with questions and possibly a little too much online reading (however I have graduated from google and now use my college's online database to read medical textbooks). I had a list of questions on my phone I wanted to ask and did get to most of them. However the ones I missed was due to me already feeling overwhelmed and wanting to focus on specific things, not because the doctor rushed me which is a nice change. The most important part of the appointment was figuring out a treatment plan. My rheumy asked what the most pressing symptom is and obviously it is the autonomic nervous system issues (autonomic neuropathy). He thought the best treatment option was a medication call azathioprine (Imuran), which is an immunosuppressant drug. However before I could start I need a blood test to see if I had the enzyme needed to properly metabolize the medication (10% of the...

About a year ago I was at a rheumatologist appointment and we were discussing a new symptom, I don't even remember which one it was, my rheumatologist said Lupus could cause it but for what ever other reason I did not have Lupus. She said "Usually not having Lupus is a good thing, but at this point I am sure you just want a name." In that moment I finally felt like someone finally hit the nail on the head. I never wanted to have a lifelong possibly life threatening autoimmune disease. Yet that was not a choice I had. As my symptoms progress and have had more and more of an impact on my life and caused me to grow up in a way that has made it hard to relate to people my own age sometime I earned for a group where I fit in. As the picture of what I had planned for my future changed I felt a need to talk to someone going through the same. Every time someone asks about my feeding tube, central line, and any other parts of my health I just wanted a simple answer. If I had t...