Hello all! My name is Linda and I am 58 years old, I live in a small suburb south of Kansas City MO. I was diagnosed on June 11 so am very new at this, and although I am sorry we all have to go through this, I am so happy to find a group of people who can relate to what I am going through and now I don't have to suffer through this alone!

So on to my story....
In Mar 2018, I went for my regular dr visit, (I get a check up and blood work done every 6 months due to High Blood Pressure and High Cholesterol meds). My liver function has always been fine but kidney function has been low side of normal but stable for 4 years. At this appt on Mar 1, my kidney function had dropped considerably. My Dr had me retest in 2 weeks and it was still too low, so she referred me to a kidney Dr. I saw him for the 1st time on May 2. We talked about family history, and when I mentioned that my mom had schleraderma his ears perked up then he asked me a whole lot more questions. He didn't seem as concerned about my dad having MS but the schleraderma sure caught his attention.

With blood and protein in my urine and a history of autoimmune, he sent me for blood work and 5 of the 7 tests came back positive for auto immune. My ANCA-MPO was highly elevated. He scheduled a kidney biopsy and follow-up appt. On June 11, he showed me the scans of the inside of my kidney and explained what was going on. He called it Pauci-Immune Crescentic Glomerulonephritis - ANCA-Associated Vasculitis (AKA Wegener's Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis or GPA). He said this is serious but we have caught this very early so I should show great progress after taking medications. He prescribed me with 40mg of prednisone (6-8 weeks) and 100mg Cyclophosphanide (6-9 months) with my 1st followup blood work tomorrow. I sure am hoping to see even a tad bit of improvement, although hubby said don't get your hopes up to high or you'll be disappointed.

So right now I only have kidney involvement, except in the past I have had a red rash type thing on my legs which is weird but when I showed him photos he said, yes that is all connected. Because my kidney function is impaired he said I have Stage 3 Chronic Kidney Disease

Thanks again, and I look forward to getting to know you all. Look for me to be asking questions in other threads!

Linda