Happy New Year!
I hope so anyway.
I’m Glad 2019 is behind me because last year was tough on my health. In July I had a pacemaker implanted to aid with the treatment of my atrial fibrillation. That appears to be going well.
Kyle Pratt in the hospital
However, even before the pacemaker operation, I had begun to experience symptoms that I thought were allergies. I treated it as such but it continued to get worse. Eventually I went to the doctor. Over the next few weeks, various specialists established what I didn’t have, but were unable to confirm a diagnosis. I continued to get worse and spent my birthday in the emergency room.
Through November I lost a lot of weight as the doctors struggled to figure out what was wrong. In early December I was back in the emergency room. During the resulting eleven-day hospital stay, I was diagnosed with vasculitis, an incurable condition. In my case, it manifests itself as granulomatosis with polyangiitis (I can’t even pronounce that), but what it means for me is that there is swelling of the blood vessels of my kidneys, lungs, mouth, nose, and ears.
The good news is the doctors figured it out fairly early, so treatment is possible. The bad news is that treatment is with chemo-like drugs that are now suppressing my immune system. After this the doctors will evaluate my condition and may change or continue the treatment. Right now the combination of the vasculitis and the treatment causes me extreme fatigue. Today is a good day, but that’s why I stopped writing for the last couple of months.
So, that is my current situation. My weight is stable. I’ve even gained a couple of pounds. Hopefully my health is actually improving. I feel better and I’ve started writing once again.
You can read about my upcoming novels in my recent blogpost, Facing the Delay.
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