Thank you Hanz & Franz. Thank you Dr Mike. Steroids is the name. Treating Sarcoidosis is the game. Well as much as one can “treat” this disease. As Dr Mike told me today, “Sarcoidosis is the ‘soft’ diagnosis” for what’s going on with me. In other words … this is what we think it is. Now I will have to follow the yellow brick road from Emerald City Medical Arts to the pulmonologist he will send me to. But right now it’s mega-steroids for the next six day. I just took my first three pills. Five today. Four tomorrow … etc etc etc … for the next six day. So if I talk to you between now & then & I’m a bit “snappish” please forgive me ahead of time … for the drugs know not what they do.

Dr Mike says the roids will help my breathing “issues” … so that’s a good thing. I’m still not sure whether granulomas are forming in my lungs, along with the lymph nodes being enlarged. All I got from our meeting this morning was that the “shadowing” and the lymph node enlargement were probably causing my “breathing issues.” (My words … not Dr M’s.) From all the blood testing I STILL have elevated liver functions. This has been going on for a long time. My liver is also enlarged, according to images from an upper body ultrasound I had a few months ago. His thinking is that, knowing Sarcoidosis can affect any organ, my liver could have been the first casualty.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute:

Granulomas often form in the liver. However, the disease rarely causes significant liver damage. The disease can cause the liver to enlarge. Sarcoidosis of the liver almost never causes permanent damage to the organ and, therefore, is usually not treated unless it is causing significant symptoms.

Meanwhile, back at my lungs. Casey (Dr. M’s assistant) will be calling me tomorrow with my pulmonologist appointment. Señor pulmonologist will more than likely be doing, pulmonary function tests, and or, fiberoptic bronchoscopy, and or a fiberoptic biopsy. Well why not … while he’s in there. Check the oil … dollar gas. Oh Doc … I was hearing this strange “ticking” noise in there …

I was up on Broadway walking around earlier. Went to the bank, dropped off my prescription, and just walking those few blocks … I thought I had run a marathon… man. Add on top of that, trying to wrap my head around what I had just been told. This is all very overwhelming. So while I was up there I called Chris (he works at home on Mondays) to meet me for lunch. He did. We ate cheep Chinese @ Magic Dragon. Are there non-magic dragons? I always thought that Dragons were magical by nature. So is Magic Dragon redundant? But I digress …

After lunch Chris came home … and I picked up my drugs. Roids for my insides … roid cream for my lovely lingering lumps. These are the remnants of the lumps Dr B-B Brain left behind. Now I don’t know whether to fault him or not. Granted if he removed all of the grainy granulomas …. I’d have two bigger divots in my head. So it’s all part of that “Good News Bad News” thang.

And so it goes. I’m still processing. It’s good for me to write about it. I also asked Chris for some “quiet time.” I just needed to unwind, write, and just let this all wash over me a bit.

Processing … processing … processing …