GI update

Kerissa • April 2, 2015

Hello everyone!

Thanks for stopping by and for your continued prayers.  I’m so blessed!

Haven’t felt up to blogging in a while because the iron deficiency anemia makes me ever so tired, short of breath, dizzy, and pale.

I’ve been needing to breathe fast as well which makes it hard to use CPAP at night.  I messaged my sleep dr., and he called me back.  He really is the sweetest and so kind!  He’s the co-medical director at the OHSU sleep program and a Top Doctor.  Can you believe this—he’s booked out 4 months!!  He thinks a lot of new things are going on with me sleep-wise, so he’s having his office double-book to squeeze me in April 22nd.  He wants to order more tests and re-evaluate.  He’s astonished that I have to sleep 16 hours a day.

I had a good follow-up with my GI dr. last week.  He always spends so much time with me…very thankful for a doctor who cares.  For the anemia, he is having me receive IV iron infusions once a week for 5 weeks to bring my blood counts back up.  He warned me that the iron looks like motor oil….that’s gonna be interesting. lol  Some patients experience body aches as a side effect, but I hope I tolerate it well.

Still receiving TPN every day for 16 hours, but my GI is having the TPN volume/calories decreased by 20%.  We are going to introduce j-tube feeds again at a very slow rate of 2 teaspoons per hour.  And we’ll be using the elemental (broken-down) tube feeds formula.  Not sure yet how this will go as I still deal with hypoactive abdominal sounds, etc.  But I’m game to try!  I see my GI specialist again to follow up on this in 1 1/2 weeks.

This morning, I had my cardiac MRI.  It’s different—they have to capture the images according to each heart beat, and you wear EKG leads and a respiration belt.  During the scan, I was told to take a deep breath, blow it out, and hold for 10-15 seconds….this cycle repeated over and over again!

Tomorrow I have an orthopaedics follow-up, and Friday is my first IV iron infusion at the hospital.  After that, I’m done for the week!

To close, I wanted to share this with you.  My sweet aunt emailed this to me recently, and the words are so encouraging!  And perfect for this Easter!

October prayer request

By Kerissa Lee • October 19, 2025
Dear friends, At the beginning of October, I started taking a new medication for the autoimmune disease. I thought I was tolerating it just fine, but after several days passed, I began experiencing nausea, loss of appetite, weakness all over, and increased pain. šŸ™ It’s like I’m experiencing another “mito crash.” I found out that this specific lupus medication affects mitochondria. That is, it causes an overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). This, in turn, causes cell damage and oxidative stress. I sure wish the rheumatologists would have known about this before prescribing. But I have to remember that Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndrome is rare, and they’re not “mito experts.” Anyways, the last time I felt like this was back in May.. I’m so grateful to God that I haven’t needed to be hospitalized from this, but at the same time, I’m also sad that this happened at all, especially because I had such a nice stretch of stable health. I’d really appreciate your prayers, that this muscle weakness can resolve soon, and that this increased pain all over will get back to my baseline. Every time I have a “mito crash,” it feels like I’m fighting the flu which always sucks. The pain has been hard to bear. And whenever I’m in the thick of it, it’s difficult to remember that this too will eventually pass. šŸ˜¢ Pray that I will endure and follow Jesus’ example like this passage from Hebrews 12:1-2– “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross...” Thank you all so much for praying for me. ā¤ļø

Thank you! (+ a prayer request)

By Kerissa Lee • October 4, 2025
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." James 1:2-3

Praises & Prayer Requests

By Kerissa Lee • September 3, 2025
"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23