The BLZ has been waiting a long time for this… Five years ago I came down with the flu and ended up in Urgent Care struggling to breathe. I scored some antibiotics, steroids, and cough medicine. To fight the virus I was told to go off my immunosuppressant drugs for a few weeks until I … Continue reading “The Scleroderma Chronicles: A Trip to the Cath Lab”
Hey. I know that I’ve been missing for a while (again). In my last post I wrote about my upcoming trip to the cath lab to get a right heart catherization. This procedure involves having a small sensing device threaded into your heart to check (in my case) the internal blood pressure. Normal pressure in … Continue reading “Knitting after the Cath Lab”
You know, I think that synchronicity is a real thing; you just have to pay attention to what is going on around you. Sometimes, if you take notice, the world hands you just what you need at that moment. Scleroderma has been kicking my butt lately. Having improved dramatically over the summer and sailing through … Continue reading “The Scleroderma Chronicles: Carrying Light”
It has been an eventful week in big and small ways. I had been mostly in bed for most of a week as I struggled my way through two snowstorms with significant air pressure drops. Ugh. I had chest pain, coughing, heart palpitations, and more sleep than I want to admit to. Towards the middle … Continue reading “The Scleroderma Chronicles: And Do You Exercise Regularly?”
I’ve been continuing my adventures in cardiology over the last several weeks. If you have been following along on my scleroderma adventures you know that I had a trip to the Cath lab that led to the discovery of a cardiac shunt: a hole in my heart. I also was eventually diagnosed with exercise-induced pulmonary … Continue reading “The Scleroderma Chronicles: The shunt hunt takes a left turn…”
Well, this is a hard topic to write about. Quite frankly, I have been getting my butt kicked lately by my (wait for it) rare diseases. Still, I am trying to respond to the calls for publicity about rare diseases along with other members of the scleroderma and pulmonary hypertension communities. You know, I feel … Continue reading “The Scleroderma Chronicles: Rare Disease Day, 2022”
At last. I mean, this has been going on for more than 5 years and had reached the point of utter absurdity. If you haven’t been keeping up on all of this, I have been struggling with shortness of breath and sporting blue lips for way too long. I also have pretty significant fatigue, chest … Continue reading “The Scleroderma Chronicles: The Blue-Lipped Zebra Gets Her Diagnosis!”
The BLZ had some anxiety going into this test… Last month I had a right heart catherization that showed an unexpected problem with my heart… there is a cardiac shunt that is allowing blood from the left side (you know, the one that is always colored red because that blood is rich with oxygen) to … Continue reading “The Scleroderma Chronicles: The BLZ gets a CPET”
The heat is hanging on and the cats and I are totally over it at this point. Yesterday we set a new heat record in my state: 99 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun is a sullen red ball in the sky and the sky is slate white with smoke from the west. The heat is unrelenting, … Continue reading “The Saturday Update: Weeks 35 and 36, 2021”
Yarn, Books & Roses 