Arm Update

It finally came.

Yesterday.
It came.

My Doctor's appointment.

You see, after like three rounds of antibiotics with my doctor to no real change with the swollen lymph nodes on my arm.
I was referred to an infectious disease doctor. To see if they would have any further ideas on treatments I could do.

It sounds bad. Doesn't it?
Infectious disease.
Sounds like I'm a one girl plague or something.
But no. It's not as bad as it sounds.
It's just diseases...that cause infections...that are hard to cure.

In any case....
I was referred to a Doctor in college town.
The problem?
When I called to make the appointment....
They couldn't see me for 5 weeks.
That's over a month!!

I wanted them to move me up.
But being a new patient, and such...they didn't have any openings.
Which....a month ago.
Was more than disappointing.
I had a problem with my arm that wasn't going away and I would go without treatment for over a month?! Who knows what could happen in that month!

But....there wasn't much more to do than wait.
And wait.
and wait.
and wait.

But then....
Like two weeks ago.
I noticed that my lymph nodes appeared to be getting better!
Yay!
Other people didn't seem to notice a difference.
Which only stressed me out more....
But it was a noticeable improvement to me.
To the point where I considered just calling and canceling my appointment.
Because if its getting better....why go to the doctor? What's the point?

Yet, everyone I mentioned this to...told me to not cancel. To go.
Because its better to go and tell me that its getting better, and be able to get in quicker if they end up getting worse.
Then to cancel, have it get worse, but have to wait another month or so to get in with the doctor.


So, yesterday I went.
And saw the Doctor.
About my arm.

It was a good visit. :)
Confirmed a lot of what I was thinking.

The short of it is....since my arm is getting better, the doctor is having me watch the arm for another 3 weeks. If it continues to get better, then yay!
If not.
Then there's the likely hood that they'll do a biopsy to cultivate any bacteria that may be in the nodes.

As the doctor does believe it's a bacteria infection.

And as it was believed by my other doctor....
The type of bacterial infection I have....
Is a slower healing infection.

As the doctor mentioned that if it was a faster dividing bacteria that the multiple rounds of meds I did should have healed my arm quickly.
I shouldn't still have swollen lymph nodes months later.
Because the medications treat the bacteria as they divide. So fast dividing bacteria get nullified fast.

But slow dividing bacteria?
Harder to treat.

Apparently there are special bacteria out there. Mitabacteria or something like that.
He kept mentioning them in combination with Tuberculosis.
Though, lol, he was sure to stress that what I have isn't TB.
But of a similar family.
A family of crazies apparently.
Where it's the 'odd ball' category of bacteria. With basically the common factor being that these mitabacteria are slow dividing.
If I understand it correctly.
They're the 'we don't fit in other categories cus we're weird' bacteria category.

In any case.
Because the bacteria is slow to divide.
It's slow to heal.
Slow to get rid of.
Takes forever to treat. Like 3-6 months of medications to treat it.
If.
IF
its this type of bacteria.

Which we would know via a biopsy.
But if it IS the type of bacteria the doctor believes it to be.
Then doing the biopsy, cultivating the bacteria to see what type it is....could take up to a month to grow and identify.

And if my arm is already healing on its own....
There is a chance that by the time the biopsy came back....my arm would already be fully healed to the point where its rather....pointless to do the biopsy.

So for now.
I'm just to watch my arm.
Like I've already been doing for the past month.
If it continues to get better. Great!
If it doesn't...then we'll do the biopsy, test it out, and go from there.

So...
Here's to my arm continuing to get better!

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi