Sjogren's Syndrome and Pneumonia

painting by Anders Zorn

Funny title for an art blog posting, right?!? However, I'm thinking about my just-now-removed picc line, and how much more healthy I'm feeling these days.

Turns out I have had pneumonia--a weirder form than the usual, and most definitely a complication of Sjogren's Syndrome--for a long time. Like...years. And I still have a little bit of it in one lung that the daily infusions of antibiotics had nearly wiped it out. The doctor thinks that a few months of oral antibiotics will knock it out completely. Yay!

For me though, the real hip hooray has been the total and complete elimination of my debilitating, near-daily headaches! Life has been DIFFERENT these past 6 weeks.

I would urge anyone with Sjogren's Syndrome, and with tremendous headaches that their doctor does not believe to be sinus infection-related to press their case. Or find another doctor. I knew that I was having sinus headaches, but because my temperature was not as high as they thought it should be, and because I had very little (how shall I put this?) booger discharge (as would be expected of a person without juice-making capacity) several doctors did not accept my self-diagnosis.

To celebrate my picc line removal and headache elimination, I'm offering my entertaining (and yes, possibly idiotic. But entertaining, nonetheless) novel Kismet free from Amazon through 10-25-2014. Click and download and read and tell your book-loving friends! The cover of Kismet is a detail from an Anders Zorn painting. Love him. And I love life without a headache!

early Anders Zorn watercolor