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A Wegener's life for me.
Why Wegener's Granulomatosis is important to me.

Marge was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disease; Wegener's Granulomatosis, in September of 2004. Shortly after diagnosis, she had surgery to open her airway. Suffering from a common issue with wegener's patients, she had what's called Tracheal Stenosis. Unable to even be intibated with a newborn size breathing tube, during a septoplasty to fix her broken nose, they found that her airway measured no more then the size of a ball point pen tip.

She underwent nine treatments between 2004-2005 of chemotherapy, to try and help put her into remission. She had been on the chemotherapy for a year and had made frequent trips to University of Washington Medical Center, where she receive medical care. She has recently underwent another 4 weeks of a therapy called Rituxan, which was less toxic to her system. Having done oral chemo weeks prior, but ending up very ill, She was blessed to be given a charity to undergo the rest of her medical treatments.

Thank you Spock and Roche Pharmaceuticals. Without them I'd not be alive today. Financially we've struggled, but we couldn't afford for me to not work, I'm not healthy enough to get back into the workforce yet. So working from home has been the best decision I've ever made.

What is Wegener's Granulomatosis?

What is Wegener's?
Symptoms are due to inflammation that can affect many tissues in the body, including blood vessels (vasculitis). It is also considered a disease of abnormal immune function.

Symptoms-
Onset of WG may be slow moving with few symptoms, or have a rapid and severe onset. About 90% of patients have symptoms of a cold or runny nose or sinusitis that fail to respond to the usual therapeutic measures and last considerably longer than the usual upper respiratory tract infection. Other symptoms include nasal membrane ulcerations and crusting, saddle-nose deformity, inflammation of the ear with hearing problems, inflammation of the eye with sight problems, cough, (inflammation of the lining of the lung), rash and/or skin sores, fever, lack of energy, weakness, fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, arthritic joint pain, night sweats, and blood in urine which may or may not be indicated by a change in urine color.

Do you have Wegener's?
If you show any or many of the symptoms above, please question your doctor about possible options to rule it out. Such diagnosis can be done by, clinical and laboratory findings such as the ANCA blood test, other blood and urine tests, x-rays, and tissue biopsy, if needed.

If you have any of these symptoms, please question your doctor. Especially if you have sinus infections often, or breathing troubles. This might be a sign of Wegener's and Tracheal Stenosis. Don't settle with just one opinion. get a second opinion. Wegener's is often overlooked as asthma or sinusitis, when in fact its more serious.