Health Update, Plus, Baking Fun!

Earlier this month I made a fantastic apple pie. It was so yummy -- homemade crust, thick apples plus a crumble topping. It was cinnamon-apple goodness.

This is my big-for-Bay Area, small-for-everyone-else kitchen counter, with all the makings of a perfect morning. Fresh coffee, baking project, pretty light falling over it all.

As opposed to this lighting, which is horrible and which I can't figure out how to correct in Photoshop (darn those fluorescent lights...). Oh well. You get the picture -- big, crumbly delicious apple pie.


I didn't take pictures of the Banana Cream Pie Without Bananas (Terri doesn't like banana texture) but that, too was delicious. And now, it's time to clean up my diet again. Too much wheat and sugar makes my tummy hurt.

***
Which brings me to the latest Terri Health Report (for Terri's version, click here). Today was actually pretty good. We left the house at around 11:30 and drove up to Santa Rosa (about 90 minutes). It was so nice to get out of the house, and Sonoma County in the autumn is so pretty. Anyway, Terri did great on the drive up. Usually if we're going to have to drive further than 15 minutes or so, she needs to lay down with her relaxation music on the iPod. But she was sitting up and enjoying the drive the whole way -- so already, a success. At the doctor she had an IV cocktail of massive doses of vitamins and minerals, plus some other magic ingredients. After about a half hour, I glanced over at Terri and was amazed at how great she looked -- her skin was a nice color, the dark circles under her eyes had faded -- she looked fantastic.

After the IV was done, we talked to the doctor. Haven't seen him in person since we started Terri there, I think back in March. Anyway, he is such a lovely doctor -- very good bedside manner, very smart and perceptive. We reported Terri's latest symptoms and how she had had a period of improvement followed recently by a yucky setback. (next follows a bunch of health stuff, if you're interested)

He said:
* He still thinks she is going to get much better and is optimistic. He seemed very confident about this, which made us feel a lot better than we have been -- this latest downturn got us kind of depressed.
* Going to stop the Mepron and antibiotics -- he thinks that Lyme was/is part of the problem, but is back to the original idea that probably she has some kind of viral infection at the root of this illness. So, taking a break from Lyme treatment for awhile.
* Going to have a round of Diflucan to get rid of the yeast overgrowth (from all the abx).
* Took a (very expensive) blood test to test for activated viruses (the RNase-L panel)
* Will also do a cortisol test for adrenal functioning
* We'll test for heavy metal toxicity in a month or two
* We're also going to do some mold spore testing in the house (with petri dishes!) since her test results show signs of biotoxins as well
* Plus some other immune-boosting things.

Basically, once the RNase-L testing comes back, we'll figure out next steps, probably including a round of antivirals of some kind.

So. What's this all mean? Basically it means that we're getting closer to the source, and have cleaned up a lot of other immune-destroyers along the way. He still feels confident that she'll have significant recovery -- we just don't know when. But we feel much better and much more confident about her treatment, and that's worth millions.

All in all, about $1000 dropped at the doctor's office today for visit, tests, injections, IV treatment, etc... some of that will hopefully be covered by insurance, but geez. Thankfully it's not that expensive every time. Oh well. It's worth it since she's getting better in bits and pieces, and the vitamin drip certainly boosted her energy. We'll see if it holds over the next couple of days, but we were able to stop at a store on the way home and do a little window-shopping, which we haven't been able to do in a long time.

So I feel good about today's doctor appointment -- we'll talk to him again in a month or so and hopefully outline the next steps in her treatment plan.