So, the plot thickens....

I had started running. It is easier for me to run in the winter for a few reasons. The hugest one is that I HATE to sweat. Seriously, it just freaks me out. Also, I have some asthma struggles, and seem to do better in cooler (but not COLD) air. And, finally, I don't really like wearing cold weather gear, I feel like I'm being smothered. So, if I go running and don't need all that, I can go out, get some sunshine and fresh air, but not feel like Ralphie in A Christmas Story.
I had just gotten to where I was doing 2 miles a day of straight running; which is huge for me. The day I decided to bump it up to 5, was the most beautiful January day ever. I made it barely one mile before I started experiencing the most crushing, squeezing pain in my chest. Working in the ER, I knew what kinds of chest pain were benign and what ones to worry about. Of course, there's always that huge chunk of female population with an atypical heart attack presentation.... I pulled my MP3 player out of the pouch around my neck and looked at my reflection in it. My coloring was good, my heart rate was pretty quickly getting back to a normal level. I decided to walk the rest of the way home and just tough it out. MOstly, I didn't want to bare my chest for an EKG unless I was SURE I was dying.
I decided to jog the next day, just a mile, so that I was still working, but taking it easier. I made it to the end of the street.
A week later, my Prednisone pack almost gone, I decided to try again. I made it about a mile this time, when my legs instantly felt like they had been lit on fire. I stopped, and pulled up the legs of my running tights. My capillaries were breaking again, but not in any sort of previous pattern. IN stead of small pinpricks, the spots were about the size of the tip of my pinky finger, red, and mean looking. They looked like 5-10 mm blood blisters (which I suppose is actually pretty close to what they are). I had my cell on me, and immediately called Hoover Clinic. The doctor I had seen brushed me off, muttered something about time, reminding me that he had stated that this could last 8-12 weeks, that he was SURE the prednisone had taken care of it, and to basically just quit my worrying.
I went home, elevated my legs, and decided to ask around at work for a rrecommendation of a new clinic.

My trip to my primary care doctor.

So, we last left off around Christmas, 2007. My ER doc had done bloodwork and prescribed steroids, and admonished me to seek further treatment through my PCP. The insurance we had at that time, I did not have a PCP, but rather a clinic I was assigned to. Unless you made appts several weeks in advance with a specific doctor, you were stuck with whoever had clinic duty that day.
My ER doc had given me 3 days of prednisone at more of a higher-middle dosage, which made a noticible difference within 48 hours. I was to follow-up with Hoover Clinic (not their real name. I chose "hoover" as a pseudonym, because, as with the vacuum brand, they suck.) in 5-7 days. By the 5th day (so 2 days off the prednisone), I was breaking out much worse than I had been when I initially had my ER doc check it out. I went to Hoover Clinic. The doc I saw said it was nothing and that I was over-reacting, but that he'd prescribe me a prednisone taper if it would make me happy. I argued with him, showed him the paperwork from the ER, and even gave him Dr. A's phone number to call. He was still sure it was some kind of trauma (yeah, I FORGOT I had had my legs beaten) or just a fluke. Dumbass. I took the prednisone, in hopes of keeping things kinda under control, just until I could find another doctor.
During this time (meaning, the month of December) I had decided to start running again. I was doing 2-5 miles a day, and really running better than I had since high school. My goal was to do a half marathon the following summer. About a week after the Hoover CLinic visit, I started developing severe chest pain when I ran. And it went downhill from there....

So, here's how it all started

In October-ish 2007, I had some pretty bothersome flaring of my asthma. I was working in the ER at that time and everyone was recommended to get the flu vaccine. I had recently been on high doses of prednisone (a steroid), and opted out of the flu vaccine. Now, before anyone gets too stressed out about it, let me explain myself. I'm leery of the flu vax ANYWAY. I don't like that it's preserved with mercury. I also don't like the idea that it is basically someone's guess as to what strain of flu virus to use. Add in that Prednisone lowers your immune system and that the flu vax is a live virus, and I just decided to be VERY careful around my patients and skip the flu vax. It actually may have ended up saving my life, as the multi-dose vial they used was tainted somehow and several hospital employees ended up having severe allergic reactions. As severe of an allergic history as I have, this may well have been VERY bad for me.
So, fast forward to December. The ER had pretty much stopped seeing patients with postive flu tests. Meaning, nobody was really getting the flu anymore. On Dec 17, I started running a fever (VERY abnormal for me). By the next morning, I had full blown flu. I ended up with INfluenza A (which we hadn't seen in the ER since November, which was also NOT covered in the vax I didn't get. I'd have gotten the flu anyway, even if I'd been vaxed). By the 19th, I was still feeling crummy, and started breaking out in little red dots all over my legs. It's called a petechial rash, and it isn't a rash at all. It's capillaries (small blood vessels) spontaneously breaking just under the surface of the skin.
had one of my ER docs check it out. She explained to me the potential it had to be serious, but said that since all my labs were perfectly normal, she couldn't do much more. She did write me a prescription for prednisone (this almost ALWAYS responds to steroids), and told me it was in my best interests to follow up with my family care doctor.
And so it began.....

A work in progress....

I decided to start this blog as a place to talk about my vasculitis. I'm hoping, this week, to be able to give you my history, bit by bit, and then to move into more of a real time format.
I want to keep this site as positive as possible, to make it an ok read. But I am also hoping to be able to use this as a place to let it all out when I need to. I'm actually wanting to take vasculitis as out of my personal life as I can. No more whines on facebook or my messageboardds, and a new place for people to specifically come for support (mine and theirs).