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View Full Version : New member and new to the world of forums



09-01-2008, 06:31 PM
Hello everyone,
My name is Paula, I am 50 years old and I live in a village not far from Nottingham England. I have just experienced Facebook and being armed with my new found knowledge I thought I would try to join this forum. I hope I have put this in the right place!
Having read some of the other introductions, I feel something of a fraud and extremely lucky that I have done so well.
I took ill in June 2007 with what appeared to be pneumonia. My G.P. prescribed two antibiotics for two weeks but asked me to report back after one week. We agreed that I had not improved as much as we had hoped and so she sent me to the local community hospital for an xray.The duck egg sized shadow on my lung must have set alarm bells ringing with the radiographer because she got the radiologist to report the film that day and I received a phone call from my doctor that same evening. That started a three week run of tests. I had a CT scan, bronchoscopy, further chest xray, nasal biopsy (the nasal congestion was awful ,I can't explain how rough that made me feel) lung function tests, and blood tests. I was never admitted into hospital thankfully and as I live only 20mins from there it was not too bad travelling to and fro.
I cannot praise the doctors at Nottingham City hospital enough. Within three weeks I had the diagnosis and was started on Prednisolone infusions swiftly followed by Cyclophosphamide infusions. I suffered a few episodes of severe joint pain,and have two small patches of paresthesia on the insides of my heels but other than that I have been so lucky to not have any other side effects. Certainly I have put on a lot of weight from the increased appetite caused by the steroids, but I am trying to address that with some increased exercise and keeping off the sweet stuff for which I have a passion! After six months I finished the Cyclo and was put on to Methotrexate and have reduced the dose of steroid and I am in remission and plodding along.
However I have a couple of queries which you may be able to help me with. My apologies if these have already been discussed. I have not found my way round the site yet being something of a technophobe. Perhaps someone would direct me to the right place if necessary.
The first thing is that a couple of times I have suffered from a period of about three weeks of quite severe breathlessness. The docs have not been able to find anything wrong and have put it down to a random virus, but I wondered if anyone else has suffered from this and received another explanation. The other thing is that I feel so down in the dumps. I feel even more guilty than before for feeling like this after reading what some of you have had to cope with, but again I don't know if this is a feature of the condition. I have to say that the cytotoxics speeded up my imminent menopause and I am now in the throes of lovely hot flushes which can make one feel quite ill, so I'm not sure if hormones are to blame for my mood. I haven't worked since I took ill and I feel bad about that but don't know how I would get on as I never know how I am going to be. Am I just wallowing or does anyone else feel like this?
Thank you for reading my ramblings.