Waiting...

Friday night, I received rather distressing news in my blood work results.  At least to me it was.  Three of them—tests looking at inflammation, tissue damage, and heart strain—were all high, one of them seemingly really high.  All this huffing and puffing I am doing with exertion was bothering me and now it is really worrying me.

On Monday, I learned that my chest x-ray was normal, which is good news.  No obvious signs of heart or lung involvement.  Before seeing my GP, I had figured the huffing and puffing was either my heart, lungs, or dysautonomia.  I have been deeply despairing because I am convinced that it is the latter.  And if it is the latter, like the dysphagia, there is nothing to do about it.  My asthma medications are not helping.  I cannot think what could, though I am not a doctor.  And this is a new normal that I have not been taking well.

The most distressing part of my visit with my GP on Friday was that she noted a fourth option:  the huffing and puffing could be lung damage from Sjögren's.  SIGH.  I have been worrying about that ever since the blood work was posted to my chart.

In the wee hours of Monday morning I wrote a rather pathetic message to my GP, asking her to look at the results posted to my chart and help me understand how they should not worry me, since she has been really good at speaking calming words on things that have worried me in the past, either reframing things or explaining why I should remain hopeful.  She is talented in that way.

At 2:35 in the morning, today, I received a message back from her explaining that, whilst the results were of a concern, they were not yet the worry that I was carrying.  For one, she said, on the heart test, if I had bad damage the numbers would be even higher.  The tissue test, too, could be much worse.  The inflammation test is the one she said she would leave up to the rheumatologist to interpret.  But what I should do is focus on the fact that we just do not have enough data yet to truly worry.  That means I am to wait for that data.  The 13th is my appointment with the rheumatologist.  The 17th is my pulmonary function testing at the hospital.  The 26th is my appointment with the cardiologist.

So, this is me waiting ... trying not to worry.
Go ahead and laugh.
SIGH.