A piece to the puzzle

Today I received some pieces to the puzzle. In an appointment of close to an hour, I met with the cardiologist and an internal medicine resident. Let me just say that I am gaining more respect for residents all the time! The resident listened to me for at least 20-25 minutes, about my frustrations over everything that I have experienced since November, and also got a bit of family history. Meaning, the history of my mom's cancer...and, by proxy, my grandma's cancer.

Now, for the puzzle piece. The echocardiogram results DID show an abnormality, and a couple of things that were slightly off for a woman of my height and weight. The main thing is that my aortic valve is bicuspid instead of tricuspid. This means that instead of three little flaps, it only has two. It would not necessarily be a problem, and many people do have this congenital defect. BUT, mine has started showing some signs of leaking. Very minor regurgitation, it is in it's earliest stages, which is why the murmur is very faint.

This is not the only puzzle piece. It is unlikely that it would be causing all that has been happening. So, we continue on with the pulmonary function test. And, he has referred me to genetics. Or, I should say, BACK to genetics (remember the hemachromotosis test this summer?). The main reason on this is my height of 4'9 which is several inches shorter than any other family member in the past two or even three generations.

An interesting twist to this story is that the resident raised the possibility that this minor heart defect could actually have caused my short height, or at least contributed to it. Which, to be honest, is something that had come to my mind the other day. Strange how these things work!

It is possible that there is something minor adrenal going on that could have contributed to the exhaustion, but the most likely reason is simply that I was mentally and physically worn out. Again, strange how these things happen. I don't know if that is so much true, but it does sort of make sense, in a weird way. I did raise the point that, if something was going to happen, why on earth did it happen during my fourth year, when I really wasn't that stressed, and was very positive, even decreasing my medication quite significantly etc etc, and not during my second year when I was in a complete stress pool, had much more severe eating disorder symptoms, had a higher course load, my mom going through so much...THAT part doesn't make sense, but the body does have strange ways of reacting to stress. And sometimes, it is a delayed reaction.

Boy, do I feel like saying "I told you something WAS different with my heart!" to all those who didn't believe me when I was 13. Granted, it is minor. But I still knew (strange how we DO know these things about ourselves...listen to your body!).

I asked about the high protein level, and was told that that usually means dehydration. THAT answer surprised me a bit, given that I had I think two full water bottles in the urgent care centre. I did point that out, asking if over-hydrating could cause the same lab work results, and to a degree, the response seemed to be yes. They would like me to repeat the bloodwork with my family doctor to check that my electrolyte levels are okay at this point, if not, then that could mean other things.

So, I am still a puzzle waiting to be finished, but it's starting to come together. I haven't yet told my dad about the echocardiogram findings, even though I really do need to. After getting the results, I did share them with some of my friends...I needed that release! My wind ensemble conductor heard too, which I was totally fine with, given that my crazy episode happened during a rehearsal that he was conducting (although it was an orchestra rehearsal). Plus, he has known me for years at this point, and genuinely cares about us.

As it stands, it's keep doing what I can do. Really nothing else. I got asked by the resident (after describing the seal barking cough) if I was up to date on my immunizations...he wondered if I had possibly had whooping cough! I explained that the booster was just the DT, given that I actually HAD whooping cough as a 4 year old (despite the vaccinations). So much for that theory! The dr will not prescribe any inhalers or anything like that until we have the results of the pulmonary function test, which also makes sense. Not only that, I'm not exactly keen on them myself...but, with the word that the resident actually put out "debilitating"...you get to a point where you say "forget the reservations, I'll do anything that might help". Am I at that point? Maybe...