Mayo bound

Next week a dear family is headed to Mayo Clinic to hopefully find answers. The young mother has been ill since last November. They had returned from Mexico, and she had a fever among other symptoms. The fever has continued.  She has been examined and tested by several doctors and specialists.  Her sister and I were out to lunch, and I kept asking questions. Not only was I concerned, but I was interested.  Our own experience was on my mind. Have they done a pet scan? I didn’t want to be a pain, but I wanted to spare her some of our long, arduous experience. They had ruled out infection, cardiac, and many other things so they were leaning
toward autoimmune.  When something can’t be diagnosed or explained, it’s autoimmune. Unfortunately there are a lot of people suffering from their own body failing or attacking itself. Some are treatable, but many are wait-and-see and trial-and-error.  There is no textbook or set of rules they play by nicely. Many patients are seen by a series of doctors who think it is all-in-their-head. When Jake was younger and heavier, he played basketball and baseball.  He had height, size and potential, but he was always out of breath.  Dave thought he was out of shape. You have to work for it, Jake. Little did we know that his body was his own worst enemy.  My friend is going to Mayo because they haven’t been able to pinpoint anything, not even autoimmune. The first team to examine her is the infectious disease team. Like Jake, it is all too possible that there could be a bacteria, virus, fungus, or parasite hidden within her wreaking havoc…