my journey with Good Pasture
In 2007, I began to have trouble breathing and I started coughing up blood. This went on for several months and I was d diagnosed with pneumonia. I spent nine days in the hospital on IV antibiotics. I got better and didn't have any other symptoms until 2012. In may of 2012, I went to the hospital with breathing problems and coughing up blood again. The hospital kept me for five days to rule out tuberculosis then released me. But the breathing problems and bleeding in my lungs continued. I finally went back to the hospital on June 31 2012 because I could barely walk five feet without gasping for air. They immediately sedated me and put me on a lung bypass machine called ECMO. My lungs had failed and I was literally drowning in my own blood. After three weeks in a medically induced coma, my lungs had healed enough for me to start breathing on my own again. My doctor's still had no idea what was causing the problems with my lungs. Fast forward to December 2013, I was back in the hospital with bleeding lungs and my doctor's were stumped. But they found blood in my urine and decided to do a kidney biopsy. The biopsy results showed GBM antibodies in my system. I was finally diagnosed with Good Pasture Syndrome. My rheumatologist immediately started chemo. I started doing an infusion of Rituxin and the treatment worked because I have been in remission since then. I do my chemo ever six months but other than that I have had no medical issues.
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