House
Did anyone catch tonight's episode of House..."Lucky Thirteen?" If you're unfamiliar with the tv show House, it's about this nasty, totally un-PC physician at a NJ hospital named Gregory House. He has the knack for diagnosing all of those cases that no one else can - the medical mysteries if you will.
After watching tonight's episode...about this woman who had a bunch of unexplained symptoms including seizures, clotting problems, cysts on her lungs, massive fatigue, and other complaints, I was a bit shocked to hear her diagnosis...Sjogren's. Huh? Yes, she was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease not by all of the above mentioned issues, but because her lips were dry and she couldn't cry. House actually cut an onion and held it in front of her face...no tears. What they didn't show is that you still have that nasty stinging reaction though. Tears almost make that better in some sense.
So, the medical mystery for tonight was what I deal with every day. Kind of strange to see it played out on television, boiled down to symptoms that could fit a number of different diagnoses (including one where they told her she was going to die). Interesting I wasn't aware that seizures and cysts on my lungs were possible ailments associated with Sjogren's. Seems I have some more research to do.
In the meantime, I've started counting the cracks on my knuckles where I'm bleeding because my skin is so dry. Had 6 on one knuckle, think that's a record. If you can't laugh at it, you'd go insane. Funny thing is that while I was sewing my youngest son's Halloween costume tonight and my knuckles stuck to it the thought ran through my head, "boy, I sure hope I didn't get blood on the dog costume." Time to buy some of that NuSkin.