Four days spent in The Townsville Hospital. Seriously, it's becoming like a second home to me of late...
The cause of this admission was mostly due to questions I was asked by the new Rheumatology Registrar (Michelle) while I was getting my monthly dose of Intragam. I mentioned that I had been feeling a little weaker of late and that I had not had a follow up appointment for over four months. This seemed to concern her and she immediately decided to get Professor Peter Keary (my treating specialist) involved. As you can probably guess, this resulted in my having to return the following week for a little holiday (ugh)...
The admission consisted of a battery of tests, including a Chest X-Ray, a Chest CT, a Full Body CT using fluorescent dye, Gas exchange respiratory tests, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera... I will also be having other tests performed as an outpatient over the next few weeks such as an Endoscopy, a Gastric Endoscopy, a Muscle Conductivity Test, another Respiratory Gas exchange test, concluding with yet another infusion. Oh, my infusions have been changed back to Infliximab again, and although I have a reaction to this drug, I am being administered a drug to counteract it prior to infusion now...
At the end of my time, it was concluded that the disease is active yet again; most likely due to the fact that I have been engaging in some pretty harsh (for me) physical activity over few weeks prior and that I had been going to Physiotherapy prior to that. Apparently (according to Peter) Physiotherapy, while helping to build up the bodies of normal people, only makes my situation worse by causing the muscles to produce more of the enzyme that the Jo-1 antibodies attack which in turn stimulates the production of more Jo-1. It's a bit of a vicious circle really...
Perhaps I should just stay in bed!!!
Well, it's almost time for me to start tea, so I'll keep you all posted...
Cheers,
Jason...
