Worst News Ever

I have been complaining since APRIL about my allergies. I've never had allergies before, but apparently you can develop them at any time in life. So annoying.

I thought these blasted allergies would just go away once the spring was over. I kept waiting and waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting some more.

Finally about two weeks ago, everything got so much worse to the point where I couldn't sleep at night because I was violently coughing and blowing my nose and not being able to breathe ALL NIGHT LONG.

If you know me well, you know that I hate going to the doctor for any reason. All I can say is that God must be trying to get rid of my fear of doctors, because I've had to visit no less than 7 doctors in the past couple of years for various problems.

Oops, I'm going off on a tangent here.

ANYWAY.

My point is that I really only go see a doctor when I'm desperate and certain that the problem is not going away on its own.

So during that week when I didn't sleep, I decided that it was finally time to bite the bullet and make an appointment with the ear, nose, and throat doctor.

My appointment was yesterday. The doctor actually goes to my church and he's the doctor that performed Luke's ear surgery last year. So it was good that it was someone I knew and was fairly comfortable around, since I am so nervous around doctors.

But I feel like I'm going to feel differently from now on when I see him in church, knowing that he has extensively examined the inside of my nose. Eww.

Anyway, as soon as I sat down in the chair, I noticed these long, tubey things hanging on the wall. Immediately I knew what those were for, and I prayed that the doctor would not be using them that day on me.

However, I was not so lucky. The doctor decided that I did, indeed, need a nasal endoscopy. So he had to spray this weird stuff into my nose that numbed my entire nose, throat, and sinuses. What a weird feeling.

And then the fun part came. He stuck the long, rubbery, tubey thing with a camera on the end into my nose, and down my throat basically.

To say I had a panic attack during the 10 minute wait for the numbing medicine to start working would be an understatement.

However, the actual nasal endoscopy was no big deal. The numbing medicine definitely worked, and I couldn't feel a thing.

However, it was kind of cool and disgusting at the same time to see the inside of my nose, sinuses, and throat on the screen in front of me.

Long story short, in addition to finding the normal things you find with someone who has allergies (I won't go into details because it's gross), he also found one little polyp in my nasal passage, which is not so normal.

So I have to have a CT scan to see how many more there are, and then I'll probably have to have a "blast of steroids" (doctors words, not mine) to get rid of them. Yikes.

And in addition to all that fun stuff, I also get to have a whole allergy work-up to see what exactly it is that I'm allergic to. You know...meaning they'll have to poke me with a ton of needles and see how I react. I'm so glad that I don't have a fear of needles, or I'd really be dreading that!

The last thing the doctor told me was the worst news ever...

After asking all kinds of crazy questions about my symptoms and environment, and all that fun stuff, he said his best bet is that I'm allergic to...

...my babies kitties :-(

I really hope he is wrong. Because if that is the case, I think I will suffer with these allergies until the day I die. Or, the day THEY die, I guess. Because let's hope my life span is longer than theirs.

I won't know for sure until they do the allergy work-up. But I will be on pins and needles until I find out. I can't imagine not having my cats.

I have a very strong NEED to take care of things and nurture and love things (like people, children or animals) and since I don't have my own babies yet, my cats kind of help to fill a void in my heart until I do have them. Is that silly? Maybe. But I know people who have pets will understand just how I feel :-) So I'm seriously praying that it's not Gabby and Ellie that I'm allergic to!!