Day 18. Dr Russian

Today I meet a new Pulmonary doctor (Dr Russian).I just hope I don't have to spell Behcet's for him. I looked him up and it looks like he spent sometime at the NIH (National Institute of Health) so I guess that's a good. He contracts for Group Health but is a doctor out of the Western Washington Medical Group. I like the idea of contracted doctors when my health insurance and medical offices are ran by the same institution.

I got the results from last weeks blood draw. My white blood cells (WBC) are "slightly low" (3.8) but everything else is good. I'm confused though, I'm not sure if this means my liver is happy or a little sad. The results said the low WBC could be caused from the meds.

Dr appointment....

For some reason my appointment was posted as a "sleep evaluation" so Dr Russian was totally clueless when we got there. He hadn't looked at my file and had no idea we were there because of my "progressing" pulmonary disease (which is being caused by my Behcet's disease) . I was irritated that someone had dropped the ball and he was a bit taken back by the confusion. It was a bad way to start the appointment, but it ended well.

He said multiple times; "I'm not comfortable talking about this in great detail until I look at all the information". He said my echocardiogram from last week looked normal (and agrees with the UW that no pulmonary hypertension is present) and he ordered a high resolution CT scan for next week. He seemed excited that I'm going to NYU and eager to find out what Dr Yazici has to say.

He couldn't tell me why my diffusion capacity is abnormal and how it correlates to Behcet's.
He couldn't tell me if it's possible for my lungs to get better or if the damage is permanent.
He couldn't tell me what is happening to my lungs at all, except that I have a low diffusion capacity.

So we're still left with unanswered questions.

I told him I was really upset my Rheumie (Nyugen) and my other Pulmonary Doc (Green) had both called and told me my last PFT showed progression and I needed to start on immunosuppressant drugs right away. He briefly looked at my PFT's for the last 4 years and he disagrees with them.

He says my diffusion capacity is abnormally low but he doesn't see a severe decline with the last PFT to suggest a "progression" or "shrinking". However he does agree that I should continue on the Imuran therapy. The concern is to keep my lungs from becoming worse and since this is an unusual symptom of a rare disease it's better to play it safe. He knows Dr Green and will discuss my case with him and he'll be contacting the consulting doctor I saw at the UW also.

Overall I liked him. My Mom asked me if I liked him because he told me something I wanted to hear or because I actually like him. That's a hard question, I don't know if I'll ever really like any doctor, they're just so unfamiliar and distant. He want's me to follow up with him after I get back from NY and I will. We'll see what he has to say after he's done some homework and is a little more prepared.

...and he said to continue with the vigorous exercise!