It’s the weekend. It’s Saturday. No doctors. No tests. No poking. No prodding. No nothin’. I’m just waking up, and I’m not feeling too great. My lungs feel tight this morning. I’m having a bit of trouble breathing. Chris asked me if I wanted to go to the emergency room, but I said “no.” Wouldn’t Nancy Reagan be proud of me! I figured that this is the way my lungs felt yesterday, and this is the way they feel today. I only have to get to Monday & talk to Dr Mike & get his input.

In the meantime I have to deal with the uncertainty & fear that’s going through my head. It’s a hellish place to be. This land of no. No ideas. No clue. No diagnosis. No relief. Where I really want to be is the land of know. That’s the place I’ll be on Monday … with any luck & and an insightful doctor. At least I’ll have answers & I can move forward … where ever that is.

“I just called to tell you …” Well he didn’t say he loved me, but he did say I have some “black shadowing” on my lungs and some enlarged lymph nodes. I have to give him … that’s Dr Mike (for those of you keeping score) … his props. I went for the chest x-ray just yesterday. He called me with the results, just moments ago. He’s already got me set up to do a chest CT scan. Quick. Direct. Efficient. That’s how I like my physicians …. then again that’s how I like most people. But this is Seattle. Passive aggressive is the modus operandi here … but I digress.

As I go through the laundry list of symptoms … swelling ankles, check … sores on legs, check … appearance of non caseating granulomas, check … shadowing on lungs, check … swollen lymph nodes, check. Hell … that’s one big laundry list … and it tells me I’m washed up. Well maybe not so much washed up as hosed. Right now it’s tough to know what I’m feeling. So I’ll wait on the CT scan & see what news that brings.

For those of you who haven’t Googled sarcoidosis yet …. Continue Reading > > >

Never thought I’d see the day I started blogging. Do I have a concept? No. Not yet anyway. But here it is the first entry, ground zero, all busted cherries & the like. What will it be? Don’t know yet … Maybe I’ll document my trials & tribulations with my latest physical malady!

I’m off for a chest x-ray. I’m on the hunt. I’m trying to find out if I have a cute little number called Sarcoidosis. Or not. A couple of wonderful lumps just magically appeared on my forehead. Went to bed one night … no problems. Woke up the next morning … two lumps the size of peas. They were hard … and sometimes they hurt.

After playing stump the doctor with my primary (un)care(ing) physician (PCP) & a dermatologist that just shrugged & said … “no clue” … I had a plastic surgeon remove them. His best line was, (in the middle of surgery) ” Wow … I’ve never seen anything like this before.” That’s always something you want to hear when a 70 year old man is scraping at your head with a sharp scalpel. The other is “oops … that looks like a nerve … maybe I shouldn’t go near that.” Continue Reading > > >