Returned from National Jewish

[Guest guest]

Dear Air Family,

Wow, spent all week at National Jewish in Denver. What an amazing place. I

have never seen more caring, happy, nice people in my life! Monday and Tuesday

were the worst as I had most of the testing, they took at least a gallon of

blood LOL and was still getting acclimatized. Going from 1145 feet to 5000+ is

hard on the ole bod. Plus I developed a sinus infection while there that they

nipped with some amoxicillan. Saw Dr. Soloman and Dr. Fisher (a ruemy) and met

the genetics researcher whose name escapes me right now, plus a zillion techs

and nurses. It was rather hilarious as both doctors could not get over how

" complicated " I was! I will get the final report in about 3 weeks or so but it

looks to be autoimmune related, probably NSIP but without a biopsy no way to

tell for sure and he definately does not want to put me through that. The

funniest part was when they asked me about my RA. I said HuH? Yeah it says

here on your 2002 hospital report you have RA. Again HUH? Turns out that on

the " normal " RA blood test I show negative but on a new test I show extremely

high. They did it twice to make sure. I've been in pain my whole life but have

no bone deformities. Makes sense to me although they don't quite know what to

make of it, explains why I don't hurt on prednisone. They really taught me a

lot about exercise and that I really do need 8 lpm when I'm active. He wants to

raise my Imuran and the goal is to stabalize me and hopefully see me again in 6

months or so. I'm very excited by it all and really want to thank you guys.

Without this board I would never have know they were even there!!

Dyane Phoenix IPF 02