The Diagnosis and my dog, a parrot and a rat...
After my kidneys crashed, I spent the next two weeks in hospital (August 2006) while they poked and prodded, trying to find out what was wrong with me. I had a whole range of doctors trying to figure it out but it wasn’t until they did a kidney biopsy that a final diagnosis was made. I had what was then called Wegeners but is now called Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis. Interesting side note is that the name change was because it became known in 2000 that Wegener, a German Pathologist, had Nazi ties.
Another side note, and funny now, is that while I was in hospital my dog, Murphy, was being shuffled about with friends/family. I remember being permitted a day pass out of the hospital and my friend, who at the time was minding the dog, came to pick me up and bring me to his house so I could see Murphy. My friend has a parrot and I remember being so scared that my dog would go near the cage and get her eye poked out. However, while I was busy worrying about the parrot, what my friend did not tell me is that while Murphy was at my sister-in-laws, she ate some rat poison in the basement and spent the night in an emergency vet clinic getting her stomach pumped!
Although I will always wonder if there was a connection between the breast cancer diagnosis and the Granulomatosis (hereafter referred to as GPA), what I was told was, no connection, just bad luck of the draw.
Briefly, saving you from having to Google it, GPA is an extremely rare and life threatening disorder that restricts blood flow to several organs, including the lungs, kidneys and upper respiratory tract. It is an autoimmune disease of unknown etiology. In my case, it affected my kidneys.