No, it's not the marrow, at least I don't think so, but I'll know more about that on Tuesday. But this is good -- very exciting!

Just came back from Albuquerque -- had an appointment there with my new "roadback.org" rheumy. At the very first appointment, he ran tests for everything imagineable. Yesterday was my second appointment, for the results.

Two raging pneumoniaes (very high titres), which he says he can kill with 18-24 months of antibiotics. However, the one thing I need is marrow so I can survive the antibiotics. So he called a buddy at the hospital, and half hour later I was on the table having another bone marrow biopsy. Grrrr . . . And of course they do the biopsy on the back of the pelvic bone, about an inch from the SI joint, so that just makes it extra-special! My SI's are already glowing on the nuclear bone scan, so let's hammer off some bone and suck out some marrow! So, I'll have the results of that by Tuesday. If there's zero improvement, I can't have the antibiotics. I'm just hoping that since I've been away from the methotrexate and sulfasalazine for almost 5 months, maybe there'll be some improvement? Last biopsy was December 12th. (Acquired aplastic anemia, the disease I got from the drugs (most likely), can't be cured, but can go into remission. I'm just hoping that mine will be a bit better. Blood labs aren't great, but you never know. And if it isn't better yet, then bone marrow biopsies every few months to watch it. Lovely, huh? Any volunteers to have a couple of those for me?)

But I am SO psyched to finally have answers! For the past 2 years, I've said that everytime I take antibiotics for something unrelated, most my joint pain disappeared. No one would listen. Old rheumy just wanted to use his toxic drugs which killed most of my marrow. I've told him so many times about the swollen neck glands, also underneath the arms, pain in shoulders gets bad at that point, chest also has swollen lymphs. Even the nuclear bone scan said reactive arthritis (SI asymmetry, etc). Old rheumy just wouldn't listen. So you can guess that he will get hand-delievered copy (by me!) of new test results and dx.

Oh yeah, klebs galore, too. At least I don't need marrow to do NSD! And I guess that's forever? Not real clear on that . . .

Hugs to all,

Patty





We all need 3 things: Someone to love, something to do, & something to hope for.