Much needed

I heard from Dr. Body today and got much needed news.  First his baby has come home, so huge praises for that.

Second, he found a pulmonologist at least willing to give ideas, actually lots of them.  I do not have to do oral steroids. I'm adding an inhaled steroid to my other breathing meds.  I may have psych effects from that but truthfully at this point I'm not sure it will even be evident.  I think that puts me at more meds for asthma than for bipolar...I am also going to have a blood test done that will determine if I have a certain allergic response that contributes to the asthma.  If I do, and if one obstacle with my MAOI can be cleared, I will start shots for asthma.  They aren't allergy shots, they actually block the chemical that overreacts and causes the attacks.  I never thought I'd be excited to face a shot every 2-4 weeks but I am thrilled.  This is the treatment I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was hoping might work as it  does not have mood related side effects and shouldn't interact with anything else.  And my vacation is safe; he actually wants to find out what happens  when the environment is different.  So, the beach and the rest/relaxation I need so much is safe.  And the good news, if you can call it that, is that if I wind up in the psych unit right now it would be impossible to know if it even had anything to do with asthma meds.  I guess there is one small benefit to this stupid mixed episode, I'm bad enough to know that if I get a lot worse I'm going to be inpatient, and if the steroids trigger that the truth is that I won't even know for sure it's the steroids versus me getting worse.  Which is good because it will mean not immediately eliminating steroids.

So tonight I am a tiny bit less hopeless.  I'm exhausted and can't wait for tomorrow to be over, but it helped to get positive news of anything finally.