My best friend has been in and out of the
hospital 3 times in 3 weeks and was finally diagnosed.
Almost a year ago she was "diagnosed" with rhemetoid
arthritis, and was on several different meds to help her
deal with it. For almosta year she has dealt with
swollen knees and ankles, and her fingers started to
become very stiff and glossy looking withreduced
mobility. 3 weeks ago she was having difficulty breathing
and horrible headaches and went to the emergency
room. Basically at that point they thought it was just
high blood pressure, and gave her lysix to rleive the
fluid build up. This helped her with the pain in her
knees and feet. hey sent her home. Still no diagnosis.
A few days later (the floolowing week)she was
feeling very light headed so she went back to the
emergency room and was told here electrolites were off, so
they gave kepther overnight and gave her potassium
iv's and sent her home. Almost a week later, luckily
while at her moms, she said couldnt see all of a sudden
and had a seizure. Her mom called for an ambulance
and rushed her to the hosiptal. While in the hospital
she had another seizure amd her blood pressure was
horribly high. She waqs in the hospital fro 3 -4 days and
released last saturday. They had wanted to do a barium
xray of the esophagus and an echocardiogram, but being
saturday no techs were there so she was sent home and told
to call first thing on Monday mornig to schedule the
test. She did and schelued it for this past Wednesday.
When they did the echocardiogram they saw that her
heart was surrounded by a huge amount of fluid and
scheduled her for surgery right away. She had to have the
sack surrounding the heart drained. She is still in
the hospital and hopes tp be released this Monday or
Tuesday. The sack is continuing to drain well and the
heart itself looks great. It took almost a year to
diagnose her with SD. This is a woman who has always been
healthy and takes care of herself. I guess i am looking
for support so I can support her. I have learned some
about this disease from the internet and know it can be
managed, but what is the quality of life like. This is my
best friend and i want to be there for her in any way
I can. thanks for listening to me!<br>Karin