The Diagnosis

It's been a rough couple of months around here. Back in April, I started getting terrible headaches. Then I noticed my gums bleeding. Not just when I brushed or ate but just here and there. It was weird. I mentioned it to the doctor who brought up some different ideas and thoughts. They sent me for blood work and said to take Motrin for pain.

After about a month and no change, I decided to seek another doctor's opinion. He adjusted my neck and back, ran more blood tests, sent me for an MRI and gave me a new prescription for migraine medicine. The MRI came back clean which was a praise! The migraine medicine seemed to help with the headaches so I was happy.

However, my gums were not only bleeding but they were turning colors now. I made an appointment at the dentist to see what they thought. They took tons of xrays and did a thorough check up. The dentist gave me a referral to see an oral surgeon. I wasn't sure what to think at that point. I knew something was up but I didn't know exactly what.

Thankfully, a friend from church works in the oral surgeon's office and got me an appointment right away. He came in and took a look and had some scary news for me... he thought I was showing signs of Leukemia or Lymphoma. So I had to go for blood work and he put a STAT order on it. The results came back the next morning and they were negative. Another huge praise! That leaves you wondering what it could possibly be though. His office scheduled me for a gum biopsy that same Saturday. It wasn't too painful and it only took a few minutes. He suggested that day that they were looking at a couple different diseases and one of them was Wegener's Granuloma. I had no idea what that was but was thankful they were taking it seriously!

I went home to wait for the results and look up this new disease. Probably not the best idea to google something like that. You will see every scary thing that has ever happened to people! Oh well, I was curious and couldn't just sit at home and wait, right?

Later that week I went back to the regular doctor to talk with them about possible infections in my sinus and chest area. They started me on another antibiotic and a small dose of steroids. Plus, sent me for more blood work. This time doing an actual test for Wegener's Granuloma.

The blood work and the biopsy both came back positive for it. So there was my answer. Now I knew what I had but what to do with it... continued on a later post...