When God shows up {Part 1}

It was about a month ago when I suddenly starting feeling terrible.  It had been a really busy and stressful last few weeks and Alyssa was just ending her t-ball season. From one day to the next, I woke up feeling just awful.  I first thought that maybe it was because I was coming down with a cold or possibly just having a bad thyroid day.  But when one day turned into a week, I started getting concerned.  My body felt so heavy and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. Naps were becoming a daily necessity.  I was not myself.  For days I found myself saying, "something is just not right.  I really wish I was feeling better already."

In between all of that, my monthly visitor was late. And that freaked me out because my monthly visitor is never late.  My thoughts started getting weird contemplating the thought of being pregnant again. No, this couldn't be possible.  It's been almost two years since Fernando had "the big v" and we've gotten really comfortable at the thought of being done at three kids.  Besides, I'm a wreck half the time with children ages 2, 4 and 6 and I just thought to myself, what if?  Just what if I am pregnant? The thought of that scared me.

Because of the fatigue I was experiencing, I couldn't help but let my thoughts go there about possibly being pregnant. After all, every time I've been pregnant before, the first tell-tale symptom is fatigue.  Like truck just ran you over, narcolepsy fatigue.  Aside from that, I've heard of people having become pregnant even after their husbands have gotten the big procedure done.  It's not always 100%, I thought to myself. I felt crazy, but one day while at the grocery store, I looked both ways to see if I knew anyone around, and put the two pack generic pregnancy test in my cart. For some reason I couldn't help but feel self conscious that someone would see the box and size me up.  I only had the two little girls with me, but still.  Surely someone would think to themselves, oh wow, she has two small kids and there she is with a pregnancy test.  I hurried up and checked out and by nap time that afternoon, I decided to take the first test.  I needed to see the negative to convince myself that my period would come and I could not be pregnant.

I was relieved when the test came out negative.  I waited until the next day to take the other and of course, it was negative too.  I felt relieved but still wondered why in the world my period was late and why I was feeling so completely exhausted.

As the days went on, it was getting hard to make it through a day without feeling like I was just gonna pass out standing up.  I also started having these really bad headaches and started straining to see.  I kept trucking on as best as I could because life without a healthy momma is just not possibly in this house. By dinner time one night, I finally decided, after having a horrible day, I was gonna call my doctor if I still felt awful in the morning.

I woke up the next day feeling the same and so I made the appointment to see my doctor. They were able to get me in that same afternoon and my sister agreed to go with me.  While at the office, I was having another episode with my vision and felt like the straining was getting worse.  I was feeling really anxious too, which was another thing I'd really been struggling with.  I just wanted to feel better already and was feeling like maybe I had been making the whole thing up in my head.

My doctor asked me a ton of different questions and at the end of the visit he had nothing and could not figure out what my issue would be.  He was about to send me away with a new prescription for a higher dosage of my thyroid medicine to see if that helped. In a last ditch effort, he decided to test my hemocrit levels, suspecting that maybe I could be anemic. He used this nifty machine that you simply put your finger in without having to get pricked. We waited until the result came back and within a few seconds, he was shocked to find that my level was at 18.6.  He immediately got on the phone with another doctor he knew to see if he could see me that same afternoon. My doctor explained to me that my level was concerning and too high.  I was the opposite of anemic and he wanted me to get in to the see a blood and cancer specialist to see what he had to say.  He said I had polycythemia and the other doctor would tell me more.

It felt like a whirlwind and I was left with more questions than answers but I went on my way. My sister and I had lunch in the break while waiting for my appointment.  I was thankful that I didn't have to rush back home since my mom was watching my girls. I Googled what polycythemia and that didn't seem to produce many answers.  I had no idea what was gonna happen next.

Upon arriving at my appointment, I discovered that the doctor's office was actually closed that day. But since my primary doctor, an Indian man, was friends with this other doctor, another Indian man, he agreed to see me.  I later found out that he took me that day because it was an "emergency situation." When I got there, I was checked in and taken to the back by the only lady who appeared to be working there that day.  The doctor came in soon after that and he explained that he had been in touch with my doctor and he told him all about what had happened at the other appointment. He talked about what polycythemia was and all it did was confuse me.  Basically, with that condition, you're bone marrow makes too many red blood cells, which causes you to have all the weird symptoms like I was having...dizziness, fatigue, blurred vision.

He said that what they would be doing next was drawing some blood to start running tests to see if they could get more answers and then he went on to say that in the meantime, he would be doing a temporary sort of treatment, to help me feel better while we waited to hear back on tests.  As it turns out, this treatment involved doing a blood removal.  And it was not just a tiny bit of blood.  I was so glad my sister was with me because I almost had a panic attack when the doctor brought in a large glass bottle with him and I just knew it.  He was gonna fill it up. :(

I tried to stay calm and was just hopeful that the removal would be helpful in making me feel better.  It took several minutes and they removed an entire pint.  It was the strangest thing to see that much blood and I was glad when he took it away.  I was told that the removal would help to get my blood moving again and help to ease the pressure that had been building up and causing my blood to thicken.  This was on a Thursday and the doctor told me he wanted to see me back on Monday so they could do another blood removal treatment.

I went home with thoughts swimming around in my head.  I had no clue what was gonna happen next but I just did the only thing I knew to do.  I started praying and asked some friends to pray too.

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Part two of this story...coming soon.