Let's back up

Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. Haha so cliche.

It started in June of 2014.  I found myself having difficulty walking up the stairs to my usual parking spot on the 3rd floor of the work garage.  I was exhausted and short of breath by the time I got up there.  I sucked it up (ha ha) for 2 months and finally went to see a doctor in August.  She had her nurse run a spirometry test on me.  The test involved me taking huge breaths in and exhaling as hard as I could into a mouth piece attached to a hose attached to a computer that measured lung capacity.  The test showed that my lung capacity was impaired and that I had asthma.  The doctor said it was due to allergies to my cats.  She actually told me to get rid of them!  I was prescribed a rescue inhaler (albuterol) and Advair for maintenance and went on my merry way.

The next few months, I saw the same doctor for a dry cough that persisted and vomiting phlegm in the mornings.  I was prescribed steroids which helped immensely and once again, I skipped off into happy land.  In November, I noticed a bump had formed and was visible on my chest a little left-of-center below my clavicle.  It didn't hurt but itched a bit.  I mentioned this to my doctor at an appointment in December for an unrelated issue. She said it was an arthritic joint and told me to take Aleve to reduce swelling.

We are now in the month of December.  These symptoms have been going on for 6 months by this time.

December was a busy month.  I went to North Carolina for my company's holiday party and went to Dallas for a few days for Christmas.  After the holiday party, I started getting chest, neck, and  shoulder pains that felt like muscle tenseness when I drank any kind of alcohol.  It usually started a few minutes after my first sip and last 20-30 minutes.  It was awful pain that made me squirm and want to hit things.   I tried a few things to alleviate the pain - trying different types of alcohol (beer vs wine), taking pepcid and ibuprofen, and loading up on water before drinking.  None of this mattered.  Funny thing was that after that initial bout of pain, I could continue drinking with no problems. 

I also started getting headaches and chest aches on the daily starting about the 2nd week of December.  I didn't think anything of it and was just popping ibuprofen every couple of hours.  My sister, Peggy, and her boyfriend, Hamilton, came to Austin to celebrate New Year's Eve with us.  I celebrated it completely sober and it was tons of fun.

After Peggy and Hamilton left, I scheduled another doctor appointment but not with the same doctor as before. I no longer only wanted my symptoms to be treated.  I was sick of not getting a good explanation for my illness.  I wanted get answers and an underlying cause for all of these symptoms.

That's a story for the next post.