Tender Mercies

When I moved to Texas, I noticed that my finger nails were breaking, discolored, and they were very sore. I thought it was the shellac that I kept putting on my nails so I stopped doing that and started putting a nail strengthening nail polish on my nails. They still were just not getting better so I took everything off of them and thought it may have been the change in climate or an allergy that I had. Eric and I were at lunch about 2 months ago and he just felt like I needed to get into a doctor. I asked a doctor in my ward who is a family practitioner and he told me he had no idea what was going on but that I should go see a dermatologist. I got an appointment with a dermatologist and saw him about a month ago. He had no idea what was going on but decided to run a couple tests and make sure I didn't have any type of autoimmune disease. I had some blood work done and the ANA test that checks for autoimmune diseases came back positive. I was referred to a rheumatologist and I couldn't get into him for a month. That left me to think about it for a month and the unknown is the worst. Like anyone would do, I searched the internet and was trying to figure out what could be going on. I was worried I was going to have to take medicine the rest of my life or that I wasn't going to be able to have children. There were many nights that I would lie in bed worried about what was going on inside of me. Eric and I prayed that everything would be okay and that the doctor would be able to figure out what was going on. I was aware that autoimmune diseases can take years to diagnose but I was hoping that the doctor would be able to tell me what was wrong right then. Yesterday, Eric and I went to the rheumatologist and I was so nervous. I was afraid he was going to tell me something that I did not want to hear. The appointment went so well and I left such a happy girl. He explained to me that 20% of the time this test comes back as a false positive. We talked about all of the different autoimmune diseases and I did not have any symptoms. I told him I am healthy and my fingernails were just looking so weird and hurt so bad so I thought I needed to have them looked at. He checked and made sure my heart and lungs were okay and he said that I was in that 20% and that my test was a false positive. My test was just barely positive so he was surprised the dermatologist even wanted me to see him. Today, I am so grateful to wake up and know that I am healthy. I know this will probably not be the case all of the time but I know that this was a tender mercy and that I am very blessed to be in that 20%. I am grateful for finding such a good doctor that spent 45 minutes with Eric and I talking about everything and him making sure that I knew that I had nothing to worry about and that I was going to be okay. I am also so grateful for good health insurance. I have definitely been racking up those doctor bills these past couple of months so I am so thankful that Eric has a good job that provides us with such great health coverage. The doctor gave me his number and said if I want too, we can run the test again but he is 99% sure that it would come back negative so he thought we shouldn't do it again. Plus, I am not a fan of having blood drawn so I was good to pass this time. I know that I was being watched over and am so glad that I can put that behind me and move forward. Eric and I are so relieved and are so grateful.