The Sarcoid/Asthma Conundrum

This space seems to have drifted from updating friends and family about the cancer battle to a space for me to just try to work out all of the things I hear from my doctors that make no sense.

This week a couple of things happened that need some pondering.

First, Blue Cross moved me from their Complex Care nurse (read "cancer"), to their Condition Care nurse (read "asthma"). These nurses are supposed to call from time to time to check on my symptoms, update my medicine file, and help me figure out what triggers asthma attacks. I had a long conversation with a very nice nurse. He is not quite sure how to deal with me, since it seems, for now, that what is triggering the asthma is the mass of granulomas in my lymph nodes and on my lungs. Unlike, say chocolate, the granulomas are tough to avoid. We left it with an update on meds to that point and they will call me in a few weeks to check in.

Next, I saw the rheumatologist. I went in as planned, asking how we can get the Sarcoid into remission and explaining that I am done being sick and we need to get on this. He didn't go for my plan. As he explains it, treating the Sarcoid at this point could likely land me in the hospital with pneumonia because my immune system is already down and suppressing it will just make me sicker. And, he wants to be very sure the asthma is related to the Sarcoid before we do anything further on that. WHAT?

According to him, it is entirely possible that the sudden onset of chronic asthma could be completely separate from the onset of Sarcoidosis. So I asked him, just so I'm clear; I got breast cancer as a result of random bad luck; I got Sarcoidosis as a result of random bad luck; and now I got asthma as a result of random bad luck? In his words, he wouldn't put it exactly like that, but essentially, yes.

So, while I was in his office coughing up my lungs, he called my pulmonologist and they decided to add a second asthma medication. This time it's a combo inhaler that I use twice a day. I'm supposed to use that and take the pills for the next 6 weeks. If the asthma is still active, then they'll consider that it is not separate from the Sarcoid, but caused by it and we'll have to look at treating the Sarcoid using the riskier drugs. If the asthma is better, then I'll keep treating that and we'll monitor the Sarcoid separately. I get why they are proceeding this way, it's just that I'd like to be done. I'm tired of having a roster of doctors and now a pile of meds, I want to go back to being healthy! The idea of surviving cancer is that I'm supposed to be healthy after the battle, not sick from a bunch of other random junk!

I think the toughest part of all of this is just that. I don't feel like I've survived. I feel like somehow I failed because I'm still sick. And, I guess because the cancer is still so fresh, I keep going back to all the times I was told that the calcification wouldn't become cancer. Now I'm dealing with something even more worrisome and my fear is that, eventually, a doctor will say that some piece of this turned cancerous. And then I'm back where I was a year ago; even though I promised myself, my dh and my kids, never again.