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This is my currently developing story. It’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! I could not have learned much of what I want to share without the input and mentoring of the whole beautiful Body of Christ in all its many parts. Good news and bad news: this article is probably five times longer than my typical newsletter article… but you’re not obligated to read it! I decided it was better to tell the whole story in one sitting than try to break it up into parts.
With a bit of fear and trembling and cautious optimism, I’m thrilled to share that God is healing, or has healed, my decades-long battle with depression. I feel better than I ever have in my entire adult life. But even though that’s far more significant than what follows, that’s not what I want to share here. Maybe another time…
In 2018 I was officially diagnosed with eosinophilic pneumonia. Easy for you to say, you say. Eosinophils are white blood cells that we all have, and mine are overreactive. They probably always have been, contributing to my severe childhood asthma, but this is a recent area of research. My condition is chronic and has recurred approximately annually since 2018. Researchers aren’t sure what causes recurrences, but eosinophilic pneumonia is treated with steroids.
In May of this year, pneumonia resurfaced, and we all assumed it was eosinophilic, so I started steroids. They didn’t help. We added antibiotics in case it was garden variety pneumonia, which also didn’t help. Several x-rays, a CAT scan, and one bronchoscopy later, and we still didn’t know what it was. About two weeks after the lung issue surfaced, both my eyes got infected. Similar story – I’m on my sixth eye doctor right now, one of the best corneal specialists in the whole southwest, I’m told, and there’s still an element of guesswork. After a month or two, the eye condition was more limiting than the lungs, though neither were completely debilitating, praise the Lord. Ironically, after we removed all medicines for the lungs, and all medicines for the eyes except a lubricant drop, both started improving. Neither were totally healed, but both were close.
Around August 8, we started down exactly the same track once again. Pneumonia got worse. Add the steroids. These didn’t help. Add the antibiotics. These didn’t help either. Cue the eye infection again. READ MORE from Dave Drum, Founder.
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