You can say that again...I feel so unbelievably overwhelmed. My heart is hurting.
So this semester hasn't been too different as far as my health is concerned. The best thing that has happened in 2012 was getting married to my best friend. I adore him and I couldn't be happier as his wife! My health is a totally different story.
Here's how it started:
In Hawaii, I started getting this really bad rash on my chest because of the sun. It was kind of like when I had shingles...super itchy and it stung! UGH! Then, we get back and I immediately caught a virus that turned my stomach for a loop! After that, I thought I had caught a break, but that would have been too easy! My kidney pain was back along with another infection! Then, I started having this horrid pain in my stomach (that I'm still having :( ) and it was like no one knew what to do. Then, I went to my hematologist where the good news just kept on coming! She said my blood tests came back and my Lupus test was abnormal and also my protein s was still low. They aren't 100% sure, but there's a very good chance I have Lupus, which is an autoimmune disease that will change my life forever. To top everything off, they think the stomach pain I'm experiencing could be another blood clot in my stomach and if we don't catch it, it could kill my bowels. So I need to get ANOTHER CT scan on my abdomen and an MRI.
I'm having such a hard time dealing with all of this. I know I am stressing Randy out, too, and it's hurting me to know he's so worried. He has so much to deal with already and his crazy wife is never healthy. God gave me him to help me, though. I couldn't make it through without him by my side. I couldn't have asked for a better gift.
Someday I hope I'll be healthy!
Friday, March 2, 2012
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Lately
This is a new blog. I'm going to be extremely honest and try to keep everyone posted on what's going on in my life. Well, everyone who wants to know, anyway...
So here we go :)
Lately things have been both amazing and rough.
I'm getting married just 2 months from tomorrow to the most amazing man in the world and it just seems so unreal. I feel so blessed. He is so wonderful and is so good to me. I hope you all can meet him. If you have met him, you'll know what I mean. I love him with all of my heart, more than I've ever loved a person before. I love being with him and I really can't wait to spend forever with him! Randy, you are wonderful :)
The rough parts are much more grim, but the silver lining is having him here to hold my hand and wipe my tears...and lately, there have been a lot of tears on my end. This has been a crazy semester as far as my health is concerned. It started with these horrible migraines that would mess with my nerves and make parts of my face go numb or twitchy. It was really terrible. I would be completely out of it with these migraines - they took everything. I started going to the doctor because they were just too much and too frequent and they immediately checked me for tumors and issues with the arteries in my brain...nothing. So, they gave me some medication and I moved on. Just a few weeks later, my kidneys started hurting like crazy on the left side. It had been hurting and I knew I probably had another UTI, but I really didn't want to take off more work and school to find out. I had a follow-up for my migraines in just a week and a half or two, so I thought I could just tough it out and mention it then. Now, I'm no stranger to the ol' UTI/kidney infection, so I knew what was happening...I didn't need a doctor to tell me. Well, finally I just couldn't take it and I decided to call my nurse and see if I needed to come in. She immediately called me back and said to go in the next day. The next day came and as I was getting ready, I just about passed out. I frantically called my nurse back and told her I couldn't even stand up and she said I needed to go in right then, not the afternoon as originally planned. I called work, got in my car, and headed over. They gave me some medicine and sent me on my way. The next few days were unbelievably painful. Turns out, the infection was extremely horrible and had gotten into my kidneys and were causing trouble. Trouble might actually be too light of a term...I was writhing in pain. I couldn't function without vicodin...it was horrible. I was told if I hadn't gone to the doctor when I did, I would have been in the hospital in about a week on the verge of dying...crazy stuff!
But we got it taken care of and life was good...except they found out in the process that I had a kidney stone - NO FUN.
So then I had to see more doctors. See, the pain from the infection left me weak and my kidney was NOT happy about that stone being in there. With it being a rather large stone, I was terrified of the idea of having to pass it on my own. One woman I know had a smaller kidney stone than I did and she told me she would have rather gone through labor any day...mind you, this woman has at least 2 children...
So I had to have a surgery to knock that thing out of there. They literally blew it to bits with sonic waves. Pain aside, it was pretty cool. Fortunately, it was a non-invasive surgery, but it still hurt like crazy.
A week after my surgery, Randy and I flew to Kentucky to see my Dad and Marilyn from Saturday to Monday, and then we flew to Arizona to see my Aunt, Uncle, their family and Mema from Tuesday to Saturday. My sweetheart is so good to me :) It was a wonderful fall break! I loved it!
A week after that, I went to Houston to get my dress fitted and Mom, Katie and I were all 3 in a terrible car accident. This guy flew across multiple lanes of the tollway and we had no choice but to smash into him. It was terrible. It was such a God-thing, though. If the circumstances had been any different, we probably would have died. Everything moved and smashed in just the perfect way that all of us walked away with extreme bruising, but we still had our lives. It was insane.
The next few weeks after that, I had a terrible pain in my left leg. But let's get real, I was SICK of doctors...I was sick of taking off work and school, and I was sick of feeling like a hypochondriac. I know that everything really was happening to me, but even I started to feel like one of "those" people...I knew others had to have been thinking it, too. So I tried to hold on and not complain, but by week 2 of the leg pain, I could barely walk. I hung on for 2 full weeks and I finally went to CareNow. To be honest, I was kind of too embarrassed to go to my regular doctor. I was scared they would see my name and go, "HER AGAIN?!" Ugh.
So I get to CareNow with Randy, wait just a bit, get in, get some x-rays to see if something was broken or torn and the doctor comes in and says I need to go to the ER. WHAT?! ER? Again?! In the past year and a half, I have been to the ER 4 times...Once for a suspected blood clot that they think dissolved on its own, once for what they thought was appendicitis - which turned out to be something called mesenteric adenitis, which is where the lymph nodes around the appendix catch a virus and resemble appendicitis, once for my car accident, and now this woman is telling me I have to go there AGAIN because I probably have another blood clot?! COME ON!!! I'm feeling like I just can't catch a break...
FORTUNATELY, I have amazing parents and I have 2 sets of insurance from both my dad and Steve. It's a beautiful thing...good insurance does wonders. Two good insurances makes you golden. If you're going to be someone like me, you have to have good insurance :)
So I Randy takes me to the ER and they run a test on my blood that confirms I have something in my blood that is saying there's a clot, but we still couldn't be too sure. So I had to have an ultrasound on my entire leg to see what was going on. 6 hours after being admitted and the doctor walks down the hall, looks at me and says "yes." I knew exactly what she meant, but I still asked what she meant. I had a large blood clot in my left leg that had probably been there a while. Not only was it a blood clot, but it was classified as "sub-acute to chronic." Ohhh boy...
So now I'm on blood thinners, bed rest and vicodin. I'm trying not to take the vicodin too much, though. I definitely don't want to become addicted to that stuff!
Let me tell you, blood clots are horrid. Let's start with the medicine....
Unfortunately, the pill version, "warfarin," takes about 5 days to work up to a "therapeutic level," so I had to give myself a shot twice a day...except I had to give myself 70mg and they don't make a single syringe for 70mg...so I had to give myself 2 shots twice a day, one 40mg and one 30mg. That medicine stung like nobody's business. To top it off, it bruises wherever you put it and I had to put them in my stomach, so my stomach is SORE. No fun, my friends.
Next, once the blood thinners start working and the pain in my leg started to ease, I started having extreme moments of pain in places like my head or my chest where the clot would break into tiny pieces and get caught elsewhere. Wow, that hurt. I'd be sitting somewhere and suddenly I'd be in agony until it eased up or I got a pain reliever to help me.
I also have to wear shoes wherever I go, even in the house, because if I step on something that cuts me I could keep bleeding because of the thinners. I have to be careful when shaving, or peeling fruit. It's difficult. I can't take medicine when I get a headache because advil is also a blood thinner and I can't take more...and tylenol says to talk to a doctor first if you're taking warfarin. So specific, tylenol makers! Thanks for cutting me off!
The worst part is the worrying. I know I'm not supposed to worry and I'm supposed to let go of my anxiety, but I'm terrified of what's to come. I find out results of my blood tests tomorrow and I'm kind of freaking out about them. If I have to stay on blood thinners for the rest of my life, it'll change everything. There are a lot of things to worry about...I'm trying my hardest not to, but it's scary. I can't take any kind of birth control with a hormone in it when I get married because now I'm considered "at risk." Thanks, blood! There's literally only ONE type of birth control without hormones and it scares me.
I'm having a hard time dealing with all of this.
I don't think I could have done it without Randy by my side, though. He has taken SUCH good care of me. He really is amazing. There is no chance God could have made a better match for me. Wow.
Prayers would be greatly appreciated...I'm trying not to fall apart.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully future posts won't be this long :)
So here we go :)
Lately things have been both amazing and rough.
I'm getting married just 2 months from tomorrow to the most amazing man in the world and it just seems so unreal. I feel so blessed. He is so wonderful and is so good to me. I hope you all can meet him. If you have met him, you'll know what I mean. I love him with all of my heart, more than I've ever loved a person before. I love being with him and I really can't wait to spend forever with him! Randy, you are wonderful :)
The rough parts are much more grim, but the silver lining is having him here to hold my hand and wipe my tears...and lately, there have been a lot of tears on my end. This has been a crazy semester as far as my health is concerned. It started with these horrible migraines that would mess with my nerves and make parts of my face go numb or twitchy. It was really terrible. I would be completely out of it with these migraines - they took everything. I started going to the doctor because they were just too much and too frequent and they immediately checked me for tumors and issues with the arteries in my brain...nothing. So, they gave me some medication and I moved on. Just a few weeks later, my kidneys started hurting like crazy on the left side. It had been hurting and I knew I probably had another UTI, but I really didn't want to take off more work and school to find out. I had a follow-up for my migraines in just a week and a half or two, so I thought I could just tough it out and mention it then. Now, I'm no stranger to the ol' UTI/kidney infection, so I knew what was happening...I didn't need a doctor to tell me. Well, finally I just couldn't take it and I decided to call my nurse and see if I needed to come in. She immediately called me back and said to go in the next day. The next day came and as I was getting ready, I just about passed out. I frantically called my nurse back and told her I couldn't even stand up and she said I needed to go in right then, not the afternoon as originally planned. I called work, got in my car, and headed over. They gave me some medicine and sent me on my way. The next few days were unbelievably painful. Turns out, the infection was extremely horrible and had gotten into my kidneys and were causing trouble. Trouble might actually be too light of a term...I was writhing in pain. I couldn't function without vicodin...it was horrible. I was told if I hadn't gone to the doctor when I did, I would have been in the hospital in about a week on the verge of dying...crazy stuff!
But we got it taken care of and life was good...except they found out in the process that I had a kidney stone - NO FUN.
So then I had to see more doctors. See, the pain from the infection left me weak and my kidney was NOT happy about that stone being in there. With it being a rather large stone, I was terrified of the idea of having to pass it on my own. One woman I know had a smaller kidney stone than I did and she told me she would have rather gone through labor any day...mind you, this woman has at least 2 children...
So I had to have a surgery to knock that thing out of there. They literally blew it to bits with sonic waves. Pain aside, it was pretty cool. Fortunately, it was a non-invasive surgery, but it still hurt like crazy.
A week after my surgery, Randy and I flew to Kentucky to see my Dad and Marilyn from Saturday to Monday, and then we flew to Arizona to see my Aunt, Uncle, their family and Mema from Tuesday to Saturday. My sweetheart is so good to me :) It was a wonderful fall break! I loved it!
A week after that, I went to Houston to get my dress fitted and Mom, Katie and I were all 3 in a terrible car accident. This guy flew across multiple lanes of the tollway and we had no choice but to smash into him. It was terrible. It was such a God-thing, though. If the circumstances had been any different, we probably would have died. Everything moved and smashed in just the perfect way that all of us walked away with extreme bruising, but we still had our lives. It was insane.
The next few weeks after that, I had a terrible pain in my left leg. But let's get real, I was SICK of doctors...I was sick of taking off work and school, and I was sick of feeling like a hypochondriac. I know that everything really was happening to me, but even I started to feel like one of "those" people...I knew others had to have been thinking it, too. So I tried to hold on and not complain, but by week 2 of the leg pain, I could barely walk. I hung on for 2 full weeks and I finally went to CareNow. To be honest, I was kind of too embarrassed to go to my regular doctor. I was scared they would see my name and go, "HER AGAIN?!" Ugh.
So I get to CareNow with Randy, wait just a bit, get in, get some x-rays to see if something was broken or torn and the doctor comes in and says I need to go to the ER. WHAT?! ER? Again?! In the past year and a half, I have been to the ER 4 times...Once for a suspected blood clot that they think dissolved on its own, once for what they thought was appendicitis - which turned out to be something called mesenteric adenitis, which is where the lymph nodes around the appendix catch a virus and resemble appendicitis, once for my car accident, and now this woman is telling me I have to go there AGAIN because I probably have another blood clot?! COME ON!!! I'm feeling like I just can't catch a break...
FORTUNATELY, I have amazing parents and I have 2 sets of insurance from both my dad and Steve. It's a beautiful thing...good insurance does wonders. Two good insurances makes you golden. If you're going to be someone like me, you have to have good insurance :)
So I Randy takes me to the ER and they run a test on my blood that confirms I have something in my blood that is saying there's a clot, but we still couldn't be too sure. So I had to have an ultrasound on my entire leg to see what was going on. 6 hours after being admitted and the doctor walks down the hall, looks at me and says "yes." I knew exactly what she meant, but I still asked what she meant. I had a large blood clot in my left leg that had probably been there a while. Not only was it a blood clot, but it was classified as "sub-acute to chronic." Ohhh boy...
So now I'm on blood thinners, bed rest and vicodin. I'm trying not to take the vicodin too much, though. I definitely don't want to become addicted to that stuff!
Let me tell you, blood clots are horrid. Let's start with the medicine....
Unfortunately, the pill version, "warfarin," takes about 5 days to work up to a "therapeutic level," so I had to give myself a shot twice a day...except I had to give myself 70mg and they don't make a single syringe for 70mg...so I had to give myself 2 shots twice a day, one 40mg and one 30mg. That medicine stung like nobody's business. To top it off, it bruises wherever you put it and I had to put them in my stomach, so my stomach is SORE. No fun, my friends.
Next, once the blood thinners start working and the pain in my leg started to ease, I started having extreme moments of pain in places like my head or my chest where the clot would break into tiny pieces and get caught elsewhere. Wow, that hurt. I'd be sitting somewhere and suddenly I'd be in agony until it eased up or I got a pain reliever to help me.
I also have to wear shoes wherever I go, even in the house, because if I step on something that cuts me I could keep bleeding because of the thinners. I have to be careful when shaving, or peeling fruit. It's difficult. I can't take medicine when I get a headache because advil is also a blood thinner and I can't take more...and tylenol says to talk to a doctor first if you're taking warfarin. So specific, tylenol makers! Thanks for cutting me off!
The worst part is the worrying. I know I'm not supposed to worry and I'm supposed to let go of my anxiety, but I'm terrified of what's to come. I find out results of my blood tests tomorrow and I'm kind of freaking out about them. If I have to stay on blood thinners for the rest of my life, it'll change everything. There are a lot of things to worry about...I'm trying my hardest not to, but it's scary. I can't take any kind of birth control with a hormone in it when I get married because now I'm considered "at risk." Thanks, blood! There's literally only ONE type of birth control without hormones and it scares me.
I'm having a hard time dealing with all of this.
I don't think I could have done it without Randy by my side, though. He has taken SUCH good care of me. He really is amazing. There is no chance God could have made a better match for me. Wow.
Prayers would be greatly appreciated...I'm trying not to fall apart.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully future posts won't be this long :)
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