Quickly...

God, I had forgotten what a ridiculous saga this all was. I'll make the rest brief. Keep in mind, this all happened over 2 very, very long months. Don't ever get sick in the fall, because Thanksgiving and Christmas really slow the diagnostic process down.

I had a mini-seizure a couple of days after they released me from the hospital, which put me back in the ER. They recommended I see an infectious disease specialist, thinking perhaps I had some underlying nasty virus or parasite. Dr. Avramovski - love him - took an insane amount of blood from me and tested me for every bug out there. All negative, except something called the ANA test. Again, if you watch House, you're familiar with this test - usually for lupus. It tests for anti-nuclear antibodies, which basically means your body is attacking itself. I was perversely thrilled! Finally, someone found the root cause - an autoimmune disease.

That brings us to Charlotte and the immunologist here. After a gazillion blood tests, he diagnosed me with mixed connective tissue disease and fibromyalgia. MTCD is an autoimmune disease in which your body attacks its own healthy tissue. I'm on steroids now, which will help manage the syptoms. We'll continue to monitor and tinker with medication, but I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life. The worst part is that it affects your ability to have a healthy pregnancy.

I still think that fibromyalgia is a fake disease for wimpy people. This really pisses off my doctor and David when I say this.

I haven't gotten to the neurological stuff yet. That's a post all on its own. (Mostly because I'm in complete denial)