Back on the wagon

I'm back on the wagon in a couple different ways. I'm blogging, not regularly yet, but I hope to get better at it.

Also, I'm fully truly totally not smoking anymore. It wasn't as though I started smoking full time again, since I had the baby I've bought maybe 5 packs of cigarettes (but that doesn't count the ones I bummed, tee hee). But I've had some news recently, and it's put me off the cigs permanently.

So the skinny is that I've got some cysts in my lungs. Soooo, this isn't great news in and of itself, but it gets worse. They're getting bigger. Not so big that my breathing is affected or anything, but between March and July they've grown about 5 mm.

According to the ridiculous pulmonologist I saw in April this may be

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis.

So, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM for short, is a rare disorder resulting from proliferation in the lung, kidney, and axial lymphatics of a neoplastic cell having a smooth muscle cell phenotype (LAM cell). Cystic destruction of the lung with progressive pulmonary dysfunction and the presence of abdominal tumors (eg, angiomyolipomas [AML], lymphangioleiomyomas) characterize the disease. Because this condition typically occurs in premenopausal women, involvement of the female hormones in disease pathogenesis is a current hypothesis.

Long story short: they think that hormones cause a women's body, the lungs specifically, to start creating smooth muscle cells, which form cysts. There is no cure, but they have began treating it several different ways.

I'm really lucky that I have a CT scan every year, because if this had continued at the rate that it seems to be going right now without any intervention I may have not known until one of my lungs collapsed.

So we are meeting with another, less ridiculous pulmonologist on Wednesday to get some more info. This appears to be a really rare disease/condition, I think possibly because it is misdiagnosed in some cases.

So, we are hoping to be officially diagnosed without a surgical biopsy, then we'll look into referrals to specialists for this particular... ya know... thing.

If you want more info, please visit the LAM Foundation website here.