Eugie = Walking Undead

Went to the pulmonary doctor yesterday. They took another chest x-ray, scheduled a full oxygen capacity test thingy, and gave me a referral to schedule a CAT scan. They have a little device to measure oxygen in the blood that bounces light waves off your finger, restrained in a clip thingy. Being able to detect a pulse is rather essential in this device functioning properly. Having MCTD, the capillaries in my fingers are prone to spasming shut when it’s cold, and the doctor’s office was a bit on the chilly side. The doctor had a hard time getting any input, and for a while there, I was registering a total 0. Yep, I was dead. Made me think of far too many zombie movies.

So I’m waiting for all the tests to happen and then the test results to come in before they can diagnose why I’m having problems breathing.

While I was there, I filled my prescription for Imuran. Decided I should probably be taking it. Took my first one yesterday. Scary.

Writing stats:

ARGH. My muse is a flighty strumpet!! Did maybe 750 new words. This new story doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, but part of that is I’m nor sure what audience I want to be writing for with this. I think the plot I’ve envisioned is too mature for middle-grade children. Wondering about trying for a YA audience instead, but suddenly I’m out of novella range with that and back into the dreaded novel size. Still intimidated by that.

Still no BFoD from Carina on a submission read 3/15. Dare I hope that she’s holding it with intent to send on to Shawna? Ooo.

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19 Responses to Eugie = Walking Undead

  1. adriennelily says:

    What’s MCTD? I have this thing with my fingers getting cold where the index and middle finger of my right hand go completely white and numb. Of course I’ve got poor circulation anyway, as well as carpal tunnel and one doctor told me “Raynaud’s Syndrome”, but he didn’t do any tests or anything so I choose to ignore him. Doctors – what do they know?

    Good luck with the ROF sub, sounds promising!

    • Eugie Foster says:

      What’s MCTD?

      Mixed Connective Tissue Disease. Basically, I’ve got a lot of overlapping connective tissue diseases. It started out as just Lupus, but has since been re-diagnosed as MCTD. Raynaud’s is one of the early symptoms, which is when the blood vessels in one’s extremities spasm shut. Yup. Actually, I don’t think there are any “tests” per say for Raynaud’s. The symptoms are pretty self-evident. When it’s cold, your fingers turn purple-blue, then white, and you can’t feel them anymore. When we lived in the Midwest, I wore gloves and mittens in winter and still had my fingers bone white down to the second joint every time I went outside. It’s much better here in Georgia.

  2. harmonyfb says:

    Still no BFoD from Carina on a submission read 3/15. Dare I hope that she’s holding it with intent to send on to Shawna? Ooo.

    ::crosses fingers for you::

    I couldn’t stand it, I emailed her and asked. ::laugh::

    • Eugie Foster says:

      Heh. I just did too. I felt sort of silly sending a query, but Carina’s great about stuff like that. I’m glad I’m not the only writer with the twitches.

      • harmonyfb says:

        ::grin:: Heck, I only waited a week. Now I have even more waiting to do. But hopeful waiting, anyway. ::crosses fingers:: Come on, baby, Mama needs the laptop fixed! 😉

  3. kittymel says:

    You are accomplishing a great deal of stuff to be dead!

    Hope you feel better soon!

  4. It sounds like the doctors haven’t found out yet the reason why you’re having trouble breathing. What do you think the reason of all of this?

    • Eugie Foster says:

      I suspect it’s a new symptom of my MCTD. Scleroderma is a pretty common occurrence, which sometimes manifests as lung and shortness of breath difficulties. Except so far the chest x-rays have all been clean. The doctor said it’s possible the earlier ones were too early to detect it.

      Aside from that, I don’t know. It’s just so aggravating!

  5. gannet says:

    Meh. And I thought I had bad circulation.

    Feel better, and I hope they figure out what’s wrong!

  6. soyfaerie says:

    What’s MCTD? Carpal Tunnel?

    • Eugie Foster says:

      No, MCTD stands for “Mixed Connective Tissue Disease.” From this website:

      “A few decades ago, scientists discovered that patients with a connective tissue disease had symptoms of both lupus, scleroderma, myositis, etc. These diseases are called ‘overlap-syndromes’. In 1969 Sharp and his co-workers found out that there is one specific type of overlap-syndrome with symptoms of lupus, scleroderma, myositis and rheumatoid arthritis, together with a large quantity of antibodies against one specific antigen, namely U1RNP. They believed it to be a distinct disease entity and called it MCTD. Meanwhile, it is known that Sjogren’s Syndrome is very common in MCTD.

      It is still a matter of debate whether or not this disorder is diverse from the other overlap-syndromes. In general, however, this disorder is considered a distinct clinical entity.”

      It started out as a lupus diagnosis, but then when I started seeing a Rheumatologist, he ran more tests and I got upgraded to MCTD. Lucky me.

      • soyfaerie says:

        Sounds painful…sounds a lot like FMF =0( What’s it like to live with, if you don’t mind me asking?

        ::hugs::

        • Eugie Foster says:

          What’s it like to live with, if you don’t mind me asking?

          I don’t mind at all.

          There are good days and bad days. For the first five or so years, it wasn’t a big deal. I’d get one flare-up or so a year and that would only last a weekish, and I’d just treat the symptoms and eventually it would go away. Primarily they were a very high fever, severe aches and pains, and an overall feeling of being sick (fatigue, exhaustion, etc.). Also, when I lived in the Midwest, my Raynaud’s was pretty bad. In winter, the vessels in my fingers would spasm shut, which would be extremely painful.

          But recently it’s been getting a bit worse, although the Raynaud’s is a lot better since I moved to Georgia. I had a flare-up a couple years ago that lasted two months. That’s when I started on the long-term meds, which I’ve been struggling to get stabilized on since. I have to totally avoid the sun. I wear sunscreen every time I go outside, rain or shine. Although that isn’t a huge deal for me as I’m not much of a sun worshiper anyway.

          Currently I’m trying to figure out my breathing issues. And I’ve been getting a lot of headaches of late. And my finger joints have begun to get strange pains in them. I’m seeing so many specialists that I can’t keep their names straight anymore. And I’ve grown accustomed to being jabbed with needles.

          Could be better. Could be worse. It’s annoying, but I get by.

  7. I HOPE THAT YOU GET WELL SOON

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