Hippo Health Care

Today was the day of the long awaited (over eight months) visit with the rheumatologist. I arrived several minutes early for my afternoon appointment and was taken back to a room approximately an hour after my designated time. In the room, I waited for another thirty minutes while I perused an outdated women's magazine and read the charts on the walls. Outside the door, I could hear the staff playing with a remote fart machine. I was impressed.

When the doctor came in, we went down the same path most other doctors in his field have taken me down. It seems that I have several characteristics that make doctors wonder if I could have Marfan's Syndrome. But I don't have hyperflexible joints, a caved in chest, or the super wide wing span. I just have long fingers and I'm tall. So he measured me to be sure. Still, I'm just tall.

The overall thought at the end of the visit was this:

1) Secondary osteoarthritis as a result of joint damage from the childhood arthritis
2) X-rays and bloodwork to determine a baseline
3) calcium supplements (500mg 3x a day)
4) Motrin based prescriptions to start (there are 12 to try) for the pain
5) determing whether I have JIA, apparently something that occurs in 1 out of 900, 000 people, rather than Marfan's. The upside to determing that is that it is treatable and detectable from bloodwork.

So that is how today went. I go back in six weeks to review all the labwork. And like I told the doctor today, I am by no means the worst case he will see any time soon. I can remember the pain I had as a child when the arthritis would flare up and cause my skin to be hot and my joints to ache so badly I couldn't sit. This pain is annoying, it disrupts my sleep, it makes tasks harder, but it isn't debilitating. There is no whining in this house. At least not out loud. :0)