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MizBellaTru, Undiagnosed bio

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golden-oldie

A Golden Oldie from August 12, 2007

I’m a 48-year old female who has had an awful lot of illness over the past 12 years and starting to wonder if there could be some connection to all of it even though my doctors don’t think there is. They just think I’m one of those unlucky souls who just is sick alot and doesn’t have very good genes.

Here’s what I can tell you about me health-wise:

In 96 I had to have my colon removed due to Ulcerative Colitis. This resulted in 3 surgeries.

In 97 I developed Iritis (inflammation of the eye) and one of the docs said that because I no longer have a colon and have an auto-immune disorder that now my whacked out immune systems has started attacking my eyes. I’m in remission currently but this will be something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life.

Things were fairly quiet for a few years with the exception of having Iritis flare-ups and don’t remember anything else going on until 2000 when I broke my left ankle (badly) and now have a steel plate with 11 bolts holding my ankle together. (This happened in 2000 and I still have problems with that ankle).

In 2001 I was diagnosed with Diabetes. This had run in my family (my great-grandmother had been diabetic and I had been borderline diabetic as a child). I started out taking oral medications but after a couple of years this wasn’t enough and it resulted in me being on insulin now for the past 3 years. (Sugars still aren’t under control).

Also in 2001 I had some kind of seizure. Was taken to the hospital and after a lot of blood tests they thought it might be due to a calcium deficiency and recommended I go see an Endo. However, when I wen to see an endo he didn’t think my calcium was deficient enough to cause what had happened and recommended I go see a neurologist. The neurologist thought it was some kind of seizure too and ran some preliminary tests on me but he wouldn’t return any calls for me to find out what other tests should be run. I gave up on him and still never had an answer about what had caused this very weird episode. (What had happened was that I had been at work and all of a sudden my jaw started to tighten up and my head cocked to the side and I started making all these weird grimaces. My mouth became locked up so could barely get any words out. I couldn’t turn my head – it was as if it was locked in place. This is what led the ER (after running blood tests) to determine that they thought my reaction was due to low calcium. To get my rigidity to loosen up, they gave me several shots (can’t remember now what it was) but it finally had allowed my body to loosen up enough that I could finally leave the hospital. This event lasted several hours and moved in to my arms where they became so rigid that it felt like someone was turning my arms inside out. I was completely exhausted after that had happened.

As time went on I would have periodic episodes of what was thought to be a seizure and I just started to learn to live with it. Sometimes only my face was affected and sometimes my whole body would become very rigid and after several hours these episodes would pass but I was always left feeling completely worn out.

Throughout all this time my Diabetes has been almost impossible to get it under control. My insulin doses would be increased but I never could get my sugars to stabilize.

In the spring of 2006 I developed some type of wound on the top of my left foot. It spread and ulcerated and I went to several types of doctors and a couple of them thought it might have been a spider bite of some kind and due to the diabetes it wasn’t healing. I was put on various types of strong antibiotics but nothing was helping. I finally was referred to an infectious disease expert and he said I had some type of serious strain of staph infection and he finally was able to get me on an antibiotic that started to help me heal. I’m now left with some horrible scarring on my left foot but at least I didn’t lose my foot which is what I thought might happen.

In August of 2006 I developed Bells Palsey on the left side of my face. I went to a neurologist (different one from the one I had gone to for my “seizure”). He was the one who diagnosed me with Bells. In the process of seeing him I had one of those episodes in his office and he watched me very closely as it evolved and told me that he thought I had a form of “Dystonia” which is a movement disorder. After a couple of months my Bells resolved although I do have some permanent nerve damage in my face which affects how I smile but it seems to only be really noticeable to me.

In late fall of 2006 I noticed my right ear was hurting quite a bit and was draining. I went to this ear doc and she determined I had a ruptured eardrum with a huge hole that might require surgery. She also determined (after some tests) that I had an infection in the mastoid and said it was imperative that I not let any water get in my ear so that the ear could dry out enough and the infection to clear up before I have surgery. She said it could take a couple months before my ear might be dry enough and told me to come back in a couple of months. During that first visit she also did a hearing test on both ears to establish a baseline. I came back to see her in Jan 2007. When she looked at my ear she said it looked like the eardrum was starting to show some signs it was trying to heal itself (because originally she thought the hole was too big for it to ever heal on its own). She told me to give it some more time and come back again in a couple of months. I came back to see her in April 2007 and the hole was still showing some progress in trying to repair itself so she said she didn’t want to operate if my body could heal the hole. In June of 2007 my left ear started producing a very high pitched ringing sound. I’m not talking a little ringing sound but a sound loud enough it kept me up at night. I had noticed my hearing had diminshed quite a bit in that left ear. I then developed some dizziness and a sense of fullness in my left ear and noticed that when the barometric pressure changed my head felt like it was going to explode. When I went back again to the ear doc she surmised that she thought I now had developed Menieres. She put me on a diuretic and a steroid as this is supposed to help with Menieres but it didn’t seem to do a thing for me. The ear doc ran another hearing test and found that my hearing in my left ear had diminished since it was first baselined last December.

So, a little over a week ago my right ear (the one with the perforated eardrum) started hurting quite a bit and the ear started draining. Again I went back to the ear doc and she determined I had a sinus infection and an ear infection so she put me on an oral antibiotic and antibiotic ear-drops. It’s been a full 7 or 8 days on this antibiotic treatment and my hearing in my right ear has diminshed considerably to where I can hardly hear a persons’ voice on the phone. I’m to stay on this present course of antibiotics for another week. In the past I’ve always responded to antibiotics but it doesn’t seem to be helping this time. My right ear has been draining for a whole week and it’s never done that before.

Also I want to point out that I gained a lot of weight over the last 15 years and I’m now about 120 lbs overweight. I gained 12 of those pounds in just less than 2 weeks recently and my eating hasn’t changed. This is what made me start looking on the internet about rapid weight gain when I came across Cushings and started wondering if I could have this.

At this time I’m waiting on some results from a urine test to see if I’m starting to have a problem with my kidneys because I’m dealing with a lot of edema lately. I don’t know if all the problems I’m having such as the poor wound healing, edema, diabetes, developing high blood pressure are all separate things or more related to my Diabetes.

So at this time I can’t claim that I’m a “cushie” because that’s not been identified yet but I’m thinking that I should get tested for it.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on with me right now.

Thank you for reading this very long bio.

MizBellaTru

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Ginger’s Father, Adrenal bio

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A Golden Oldie

this story is of my father. He was a or nurse on the transprt ship the usst sea barb during ww2, he graduated high school at age 16 and he then went to simpson college and had completed over two yrs when the war broke out. he signed up seeing how he was studing to be a doctor they signed him up in the corps.. after the war ended he went back to school. and then a year later signd up for the reserves. he continued to go to school ,work part time and work in the reerves. he and mom had two children by 1953 and he continued to do thest things. during this time some kids drove past him very fast and crashed their car. my dad getting off of the reserves and still being in uniform stopped a couple of the kids where dead but he did save the others by stabiliting them tell help arrived. and one young adult had major trama dad took his uniform jacket off and wrapped him up saving hs life tell help could get there. dad came home and mom seeing him covered in blood screamed until my dad calmed her and told her it was not his.

the year was 1957 my dad was starting to show signs of the disease he had lost an 1inch and half and at home he used to be a loving and decated husband and father but he was having more problems controling his emotions…he was in pain allot. the reserves still took my dad. and my dad had gooten a B/S degree in biology and education and he had then transfered to a methodist seminary to become a minister in 1950. by 1957 he had a nother degree and had completed chaplain school with thearmy reserves.

in 1961 i was born and the following spring he had a tabogoning accident which he could not move from and he wsa sent to fargo north dakota where it was discovered he had cushings as they called it from there he was sent to minnaplais/ minn where he stayed for 265 days. he had four major surgeries and 11 minor ones. trying to correct the symptoms of the disease. he had his gallbladder removed  mar 1963, due to gallstones, he had his adrenal glands jan/1963 removed due to the high levles of hormons.abscess from ruptured divrticulum .tepary colestemy repai at age 39 “1963”his doctor was dr. Pelzi he suffered from osteoperosis with fractures of th spine/back. clavicle and several ribs more then once.

after a serious illness in apr 1962 he was sent to fargo with compressed fractures of the spine, ankle edema, weight gain and th fractures.at the minneapolis hosp he showed he was in the late stages of the disease he had osteoperosis, with mutliple compressions fractures on inttering the hosptial in dec 1962 they found he had diverticulitis  of the sigmoid colon,5/9/63 with abscess they where drained at surgery 1/11/63 in mar at the same time they took his adrenal glands they took his gallbladder due to chronic chelecyelithiasishe was put on replacement hormone thearpy.he had high bllod pressure due to cushings. he then had to have more surgery to correct colon 5/14/1943 problem with aneatomeisi a tempary cocestomy was done and ended on 7/3/63 when  the colestomy was closed and his large bowel was then re-anastemesed.    on 7/5/1943 his family was called and told he was dying and there was nothing they could ddo to help him. mom rounded up us for kids and took us up to the hospital  dads parents had gotten there thirty minutes before and they pronounced my dad dead when they arrived.   when we got there mom called my dads name and he sat up in the bed and talked to her.  he got out of the hospital in sept of 1963. the military retired him and the methodist church also did. he was walking with the add of churths and a cain. he also could not longer control his emotions.

when he had entered the hospital they had given him a year to live. or they gave him the option for them to experiment on him. due to his young age and him being a man they felt like the research could help allot of people. the studdied him to find where the disease can from and what it did to all the systems of his body. they gave him a pention and all the hospitals etc was free due to him being in the military but on inactive statis. my dad choice to help people. he was 39 years old and i was two years old.

when dad got out of the hospital he would be calm and kind and the next mintue a raging out of control person. even though he was very weak and never could walk well picking up his feet as he walked but when he got angry he had the strength of ten men. at the hospital they had told my mom about dads changed behavior and wanted to instational lize him from then on. but my mom refused feeling he needed to be at home with his family.

dad lived and went from job to job every few months to maybe lasting a a year here or there.due to his uncontrolable temper. we moved to wyo. and he continued to go to the va hospital in cheyenne wyo trying to get stabilized.we moved from town to town and in 1964 my brother was born. dad was very unstable and wwas in constant pain. in 1967 he almost beat my mom and little brother to death. the law came and took him to the edge of twon and told him not to come back. a year latr a few dyas before his and moms divorce would have been final he called mom and begged her to let him come home she refused and he said I will kill myself mom had heard that one many times before and she said go ahead. he did on thier 25 wedding aniversary. the next day.

I tell you this story to let you know of my dad who was a good healthy man, who was a good father and dad he had two B/S degrees and was in the ww2 and in the military almost 20 years. he became a minister and was a good one i heard.  and then he got sick but instead of living without surgeryies etc he choose to help and let the doctors  experiment on him so it would help other people. his body shows his scars and i have some pictuers of him. the atopsy is a mistory abut the man who claimed to have done it said even though daddy ws 46 years old he had the body of a 98 year old man. he was lost four inchs in hiegth and wher in the last stages of canser…the md also said he did not know how daddy had lived that long with all his health concorns… i have many documents that back up what i have said… i have discovered them doing genealogy research…just me ginger hawn cooper

my dads name was Charles Hamilton Hawn the fourth..my oldest brother says daddy is in th medical books som wof the first in treating this illness…from 1962-1967

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