Hyper

I'm lucky the steroids do not give me insomnia, but I have to admit they do make me a little hyped-up. So I get hyped-up starting at about 8:30pm, after I take them, but I seem to have no trouble going to sleep any time afterwards. Which means I have an hour or so to fly around the house doing laundry, folding diapers, putting away dishes, cleaning, sorting the boys' clothes, and whatever else I see that needs to be done. I feel invincible. Last night we watched "Limitless," a movie starring Bradley Cooper. Watching the movie itself felt especially intense on the steroids, and I couldn't help thinking about how similar steroids are, for me, to the fictional NST drug the movie is about. I feel clearer and more focused and certainly feel a lot more intense about everything. I also get warm and sweaty and can be a pain for Jeff to deal with, though, and I haven't quintupled our money in the last week of being on them, so they're clearly not as good.

Friday I saw the second opinion pulmonologist, Dr. Scholarly. I got an appointment with him because my endocrinologist knows him and called on my behalf, when normally the wait is six or seven months (as I heard the receptionist say while I was in the waiting room). He agreed with Dr. Low Expectations on the most important things: that I am basically healthy, that I have no systemic disorders, and that my lungs are back to normal (or even better-than-normal) function. But they disagree on a few things which are giving me pause. Dr. Scholarly says that he has never seen a hemorrhage like this on my thyroid medication, so because of that, he infers that it is not possible. He says I can, and possibly should, resume taking it. He says that if the drug caused the hemorrhage, I would not have returned to normal lung function because it takes longer than a few days for a drug to leave my system. He sees my thyroid as the priority at this point because he believes that whatever caused the hemorrhage is over and will never return, though he has no idea what caused it. It seems his leading theory is that I had a cold or allergies or some kind of trauma that caused a bloody nose or cut on my throat, and that the blood in my lungs did not originate from my lungs but rather pooled there from higher up. If that is true, it would be frightening to imagine I could have pooled that much blood in my lungs when I did not feel sick AT ALL. I reiterated several times that I had been feeling fine, with no major cough or other symptoms, but this remains his theory. He believes whatever benefit the steroids had is over, because my lungs are back to normal function, and that I could stop them now if I had a plan for dealing with the overactive thyroid. He also says that a chest x-ray in a week or two could confirm that my lungs are back to normal and would spare me the radiation that Dr. Low Expectations thinks I should have in the form of a CT scan in four weeks.


Now the question becomes, how to reconcile the opinions of these two doctors. Undoubtedly, Dr. Low Expectations is a cowboy. His recent interest in me as a person or patient seems primarily due to my freak status as recipient of rare complication. But his explanations and approach resonate with me and with Jeff more, and his approach seems the more conservative. It does not make sense to us that I could have had some illness or trauma that caused a massive lung hemorrhage without knowing it. If that is not a reasonable explanation, it is at least possible that the thyroid medication caused the hemorrhage, in which case restarting it would be foolish. I understand that steroids, particularly at the dosage I take, are a serious matter, but the risk of the hemorrhage not healing prior to ending the medication, and possibly recurring, is also grave. I am lucky not to have experienced any of the major side effects, and if I were, I would probably be more excited about the possibility of going off of them. My plan at this moment is to see my endocrinologist in another week and see what she thinks. She has spent a significant amount of time talking to both of the pulmonologists, and I hope she will help steer me in the right direction.

As for the boys, they are great. We had a quiet weekend here with just the four of us, plus a nice visit with Uncle Jon today. Theo has resumed sleeping well again (8 or so hours after he goes down) but Beck is still often unsettled throughout the night. Last night he was up several times before 2am, which is the earliest I can feed him because I take the steroids at 8pm and want to wait 6 hours before nursing again. We almost made a bottle from some of Sarah's milk we still have around, because he was so unsettled. I do not feel like I have the same milk supply as I used to, and I'm not sure exactly why, but it makes me nervous because now there are times I can't feed my babies. I know we have breastmilk and formula and it's not like they're going to go hungry but I wish it weren't this way.

We've just put away most of the 3-6 month clothes and have resupplied with the 6-12 month clothes. It's fun to have them try on new clothes, most of which are supercute. We have one camouflage romper from the Bleisenbergs that Beck wore to bed tonight that I adore--I'll try to get a picture and post it tomorrow.