30 Day Chronic Illness Challenge… Day 3… How did I get my diagnosis…

I knew I couldn’t make it on consecutive days… but this morning is beautiful.  I’m sitting on the porch in the fog and drizzle with a fire going in the chiminea and it’s perfect!!! The wet in the wood is making the fire pop and crackle.  The morning music is astounding to me today.

Okay… so… I probably ought to have read ahead a little.  I guess I kind of answered this one a little.  But… I guess I could answer it a whole lot deeper if I try…

So… I had been hurting for a long time.  My hands… the front half of my feet… my knees off and on… and then the knuckle bump came.  (Nodule… I’m one of the “lucky” 20% who get nodules) and I got scared.  So I went to my PCP and asked.  It took a couple days to see her… it took 20 minutes after the appointment to get into the lab to get the ordered blood work done (She didn’t tell me what she was looking for) and two more days to get the results back (in a phone call from the PA).

That was the official diagnosis.  My Rheumatoid factor was WAY WAY high.

I got sent to the rheumatologist who looked at my hands and feet and said… you have been active for a while.  She sent me for x-rays… which showed I had been active for at least 18 months probably more… and that I already had joint damage.

I “should have come in sooner”

okay… 20-20 hindsight.  woohoo…

But… yeah… that was my diagnosis story.

Nothing overly glamorous.  I would probably have a much more long and convoluted story if I had gone when I started to hurt rather than just chalking it up to my imagination or writing too much or whatever.  I might have had a longer story, a bigger fight, a different reality today.  But I waited long enough that damage was done and there was no denying my reality.  

The other co-dependent conditions… those were diagnosed as I went, in the dr’s office.  It was kind of an evolution…