the autoimmune professor

Hey everyone! I have been MIA for almost a year and I want to apologize! I have been through a rollercoaster this last year, so let me tell you what is going on. When I stopped writing my blog and recording my podcast over the summer, it is because I got really sick and had to preserve my spoons to be able to do my job and go to school. Unfortunately, as much as I love writing the blog and recording the podcast, something had to take a backseat.

When we went through the path to my diagnosis, I thought that would be the end for a little bit. I was managing using the supplements, diet, and exercise and assumed that would take care of all of my issues for quite a while; however, the autoimmune disorders had a different plan.

I started on my second doctorate degree (a doctorate in health sciences) at the beginning of July and I was going to be starting a new job as an assistant professor at a new university about three hours away from my home in August. I was feeling pretty good, no major symptoms other than the fatigue and the occasional digestive issue. Fatigue and digestive issues have always been my worst symptoms, so still having those a little bit was not a huge deal as I have figured out how to live with them on a daily basis. So overall, things were going really well for me and my plan was to take a month off from the blog and the podcast and come back with the start of season two at the end of August once I was settled into my new roles. I went in for my six-month check-up at the end of July and had all of my blood work done again and then I moved to my new apartment soon after to start my new job. My new job was for a visiting one-year term, so my husband and I decided that he would stay in our house and keep his job and I would live in an apartment by school and we would commute on the weekends and on breaks to spend time with each other. The day after I moved, I got extremely anxious, very nervous, and was having major digestive issues that I kind of just chalked up to the fact that I moved away from husband, I was very sad, and I have generalized anxiety disorder so this all made sense to me. However, I would soon find out that while those things probably played a part in how I was feeling, it was not the only reason that I felt that way. Three days after I moved, I received a call from my general practitioner to tell me that they have received my results of my blood work and that my rheumatologist was on vacation, so they had sent the results to my GP to contact me. My inflammation markers had tripled, I was now testing completely positive for lupus in all aspects along with higher numbers in rheumatoid arthritis and Sjogren’s (if you remember from the path to diagnosis, I do not have any pain yet). Along with those test results, it also is showing that my white blood cell count is extremely high and my lymphocytes are extremely high, which is strange because I had not been fighting any kind of infection and those with lupus usually do not have the level of white blood cells and lymphocytes that I had. At this point, my doctor pretty much terrifies me (he doesn’t mean to), but he is telling me that we have to get this under control before it really starts to affect the rest of my body (I was diagnosed early and I do not have any organ involvement other than my skin and digestive system).

After a very long discussion with my doctor, he concluded that I needed to be at home and not living three hours away from pretty much everyone I know and in a town that did not have a hospital nearby. He was very concerned that my regular symptoms were going to start increasing and that new symptoms were going to appear. Additionally, when the rheumatologist decided to start treatments, he said I could not be living alone, that I needed to have someone that lived with me in case of bad reactions and side effects. I was very concerned, so I called my rheumatologists office and asked if there was any way to get a message to my rheumatologist and just make sure before I completely explode my life at this point that he is on board with my GP. I received a call back from my rheumatologist on vacation who said that he was emailed my results and yes, he completely agreed with my GP and made an appointment to see me the next week when he was back.

At this point, I had no idea what I was going to do, do I listen to them and quit my job (with classes starting in seven days) and leave those in my department and those that were to be my students hanging? Well, my GP decided to write a letter to the university asking if they could please accommodate me and allow me to teach remotely through zoom so that I could move home and receive treatment and have someone living with me, but still be able to keep my job. Thankfully, the university approved all of this and at the same time, the apartment complex also understood and let me out of my lease. Everyone was so wonderful through this time. Anyone with an autoimmune issue knows that stress is our biggest enemy. It is the one thing that will throw us into flares and make symptoms appear every single time. For some reason, stress triggers the inflammation and immune system, so to have all of these stressors taken care of was such a blessing. On a side note, I am getting my second doctorate online so I was able to continue that without any issues.

So, I moved home, I got ready to start teaching on zoom, I switched everything over to a remote learning environment and thought at this point everything was going to be ok…. I was wrong once again!