Family Practice & Allergist Appointments

This morning, Mom/Lucy/I went to meet my primary care doctor to get him up to speed on the last month.  He agreed with the treatment, gave me more hope that things will get better when the c-diff/antibiotic treatment is over, and is keeping his fingers crossed the relapse was maybe a post-partum response, and we may never see it again (needless to say, unless God has other plans, I'm happy we have a boy and a girl and very fulfilled with having 2 wonderful kids; both pregnancies really took a toll on me).  I mentioned this to Adam, and he reminded me how right after I had Drew, I got extremely ill then too and was on liquids for 3 weeks after that too. It was very different this time, but it does make me wonder if my body is reacting somehow post-partum.  Just seemed odd 3 months post-partum, but I'm not going to try and test the theory again :) 

This afternoon, Mom and I headed to Northwestern to have my 3-hour allergy workup. We gave the allergist my full background and started the allergy testing.  One arm had food allergies, and one arm had seasonal/enviromental allergies.  The antihistimine, which should show what an reaction looks like, was minisule.  Every food reaction was larger than the antihistimine, showing an allergic reaction, but none looked the same as the antihistimine.  There was no reaction to any of the environmental allergies.  The allergist came in to see me, and said it looked like I reacted to every single food - with egg being the most prevalent.  I actually started crying.  I want to eat so badly and food looks better every day.  My tongue and mouth got tingly, my eyes itched, and I seemed to be having some sort of reaction.

My mom tried to encourage me that it could be just a massive allergic reaction to everything, and once treated, this will all go away.  I don't think anyone could have said anything at that point to make me feel better.  It scared the crap out of me to think about being on formula for the rest of my life.  Anyone can say anything, but they aren't the one living with this and its been incredibly challenging, each and every day.  To think I could be allergic to everything is too much to even comprehend at this point.  The allergist said the results were pretty inconclusive and with all the steroids, it may not be accurate at all.  DUH - that's why we were putting it off until November.  What a waste.  They recommended I redo the test again in 9 weeks (3 weeks post the 6 week steroid treatment).  Another delay...

The medicines, new diet, and just being so sick the last 30 days have truly exhausted me.  I dropped the steroids 20mg today, and just had a really "down" day today - getting the formula down is extremely difficult and I feel literally sick to my stomach all day.  I'm not sleeping much at night with the steroids, am very unstable/unfocused, and my GI system feels like it has the flu 24x7 which makes it extremely difficult to stomach the formula.  I forge ahead as I know the alternative is without my family, back in the hospital.  I worked about 16 hours this week and hope to do 3 full days later next week.  It's a good distraction for me, but hard at the same time knowing I'm mentally/physically struggling and not at the top of my game.

As I told Adam, I'm literally taking every hour a time.  Some times I feel good; other times I feel awful. This week has been such a major adjustment out of the hospital (over half the month was in one of two hospitals); I've been more mentally struggling with the so many unknowns.  I still live in hope that all this will heal and get better, and pray for patience most of the time. It's hard to be optimistic all the time... yesterday/today were two of those days.  I guess I was expecting a lot more answers than I got.