The blog release went incredibly well on August 19th and was very unexpected!! A HUGE thank you to everyone who took time to visit the site!!

Unfortunately, during this time my most problematic daily symptom was my breathing issues coupled with lots of inflammation in my torso that could be seen on my back near my lungs.

I did finally receive the results to my chest x-ray which came back clear but my inflammation blood panel came back abnormal. Almost all of the results were double the maximum for inflammation.

It was finally a reason to explain what was going on!! As I continued to track when it was occurring, I knew that high humidity was the thing that would cause the inflammation to flare up.

When I had more of these breathing issues in the future, I would check with my pulse oximeter and found that sometimes my oxygenation would lower depending on how much my back was inflamed (would drop to low 90s- high 80s for about 15-20 minutes).

I had reached out to my rheumatologist to address the issue, but they said they didn’t want to handle it. I was able to schedule the soonest appointment with my autonomic neurologist (the one who ordered the blood test) and the earliest is November 23rd 2022 (so I just won’t breathe until then ;-) ).

In house news, I learned that if you rarely ever use your kitchen sink (which I don’t because I can’t cook anything to eat), then you will develop drain flies. -Lovely.

So, I spent my time getting rid of them and now I leave my drain cover on permanently in the sink.

I did restart back on cream of rice because I just needed something “heftier” than Smarties to “snack on” and luckily, I did not get vasovagal again (once again showing that my body fluctuates in making safe foods unsafe and vice versa).

By the end of August, I finally got to work as one of the stage managers for an orientation event at my school which I was so excited and nervous for-since it was the first time in over a year.

The rehearsal and performance went fantastic, and it felt so great to be back to myself again. I had brought with me a transportable stool so I could sit backstage, and it was extremely helpful.

Otherwise, my breathing issues became a daily “norm” and my abdominal issues were becoming a bit more bothersome since starting back on the rice a couple weeks prior. I was continuing to have lots of pain and bloating and began having to take nausea medication every day.

On September 2nd I had my last day at physical therapy!!! I was so excited to be discharged since I had been going for TWO YEARS!! It was such a lovely last visit, and I was really proud of the work I accomplished by the end of it all.

As the days before school starting were winding down, I was cleaning around the house and kept getting interrupted by symptoms and “doing too much” which really slowed the whole process.

One of the days I was sweeping by the kitchen and had been doing cleaning for about an hour, when I got hit with severe pain and nausea and had to lay down and not move for the rest of the day (as a result of not stopping cleaning earlier).

I had some family and friends come to visit and check in prior to school starting which was really great to catch up with everyone.

As it began continuing to rain in Boston, my inflammation was spreading to my neck which didn’t help much with the whole “breathing issue”.

My first day of school went pretty great but my body was a lot less prepared for it than I was expecting.

Since I had done summer classes, I thought my body wouldn’t have that large of a jump to make to go into 3 in-person classes on the same day (I only had class on Monday and Wednesday). After arriving home from my first class, I almost threw up from how much energy it took me to “act normal”.

I also was really not used to the weight of carrying my TPN bag with all my school supplies in it, which resulted in my backpack strap actually cutting my shoulder from the weight. (It got much better after it became the norm).

The adjustment of finding rest time and when to do work was extremely tough for me this semester but I’m glad to say, over time, it found its routine.