Too much Grey's Anatomy?

I heard Carolyn grunting in the kitchen (I was in the bedroom), and asked Craig if we had a girl who was pooping. He said no, we had a girl who was NOT pooping (she does that a lot). I responded by directing him to push 20 cc's of apple juice, and then I laughed at myself :).

Cute girl

B did the cutest thing today! We picked Craig up from school and were on our way to the park to play "soccer" and we heard a smacking sound coming from the backseat. Craig looked back there are Carolyn was giving her baby kisses. We told her that was very sweet and that she was being a very good mommy. She thought it was pretty great.

You really do have to be your own advocate

Long story short - after detailing all of my history and my experience with dietary supplements NOT working for me, the Dr. said "Well, let's try a dietary supplement and re-test in a few weeks and see if that boosts your iron level. If not, we might try an IV". Right. Apparently I was the only one present in that conversation. So I asked if there was any way we could just skip move right to the IV because I didn't want to waste my time. He said sure and I had my first transfusion on Tuesday, and am scheduled for 3 more treatments with labs done before the last one. There can be complications and pain, but mine went just fine. I did have some side-effects yesterday (Thursday), but with some heat wraps and tylenol I was fine after a few hours. All in all, not bad in the least! I am excited to feel better and have more energy. I know my husband and daughter are too!

An appointment

The hematologist in Yakima comes to E-burg a few times a month, so they said they could see me at my doctor's office on December 16, but that I would have to go to Yakima if I wanted to get in sooner. Needless to say, I didn't want to wait that long. So they are actually fitting me in next week! Yay! So I am hoping that they will start treatment then, on Tuesday the 11th.

Oh, and I still have my fever. Whatever.

Answers and optimism

So apparently it was in fact a radiologist who looked at my x-ray and he was quite certain that I had a small amount of pneumonia. My cat scan also indicated some lingering sinusitis, but a very minor case. My fever persists, but I am only on day 4 of my new course of antibiotics.

The nurse who called me inititally about the anemia said I had "some anemia". Well, it's actually severe anemia. After my pregnancy I had come to the conclusion that my body just isn't capable of breaking down iron supplements because I had tried every kind available and nothing was helping. It looks like I never really got over it. So that makes me feel tons better just knowing that I have been really ill and I am not just being a wanny. The pneumonia and sinusitis are most likely the result of the anemia because my blood can't carry sufficient amounts of oxygen and that impairs my body's ability to do . . . well . . . pretty much everything. All things considered, I am really lucky to have been as healthy as I have! I am an avid handwasher, it's true, and with this new information I'm really glad I developed that habit. So I will be seeing a hematologist soon, and the most likely course of action will be either a shot or an IV iron treatment. It may end up being several treatments, and there's a small chance they will want to do a bone marrow biopsy. My Dr. thinks that is pretty unlikely though because I have a really good explanation as to why I got so severely anemic while being otherwise healthy. My B-12, folate, and calcium levels, for example, are all great. So while my body will always struggle more than most to absorb nutrients, it obviously does better with some than others. And I am more than fine with getting an iron shot or IV treatment. Sure it won't be a walk in the park, but it will be A LOT better than being this anemic. And I look forward to my next pregnancy (which will not be immediate) with a lot less trepidation. Not that I had a bad pregnancy, but I had a really bad post-partum period that my body apparently never really fully recovered from. So with treatment I will be well, and I will know exactly how to deal with anemia that will probably occur in my next pregnancy.

So everything is a lot clearer now other than the fever, but I am hopeful that it will sort itself out when my other issues are resolved.

The mysteries continue

First of all, Carolyn and Craig are fine. Yay for that!

My fever continues, but still isn't usually bothersome. My blood work is back and shows iron-defieiency anemia, so that explains the fatigue. "Something" apparently showed up on my chest x-ray, so I am being treated for pneumonia. I really don't think I have pneumonia, though. I've had it twice before, and I felt like crap and obviously had a terrible cough and rattling lungs. I don't have any of that now, and my blood work doesn't indicate any kind of infection - my white blood cell count is actually a little below normal. But my doctor still wants be to proceed with my antibiotics and do another x-ray in three weeks. In the meantime I will be going in on Friday to deal with the anemia, and I will ask about the rest of the results of my labs. I have to admit that I feel a little uncomfortable with the antibiotics since overuse has led to more resistant bacteria, but I am trusting my doctor that this is the right course of action. So now I am taking azythromyscn (commonly called the z-pack) and doxycycline. Hopefully we'll see some results soon!

Medical Mysteries

We have had all sorts of adventures in health care over the past month. I have had a low-grade fever for a month now. The weird thing is that I haven't had any consistent accompanying symptoms. I've had a few headaches, a few body aches, and some fatigue to varying degrees. After the first doctor's visit which was 10 days after the fever started, he said to give it another week because it could be a viral thing that would go away. So I did rest & fluids for a week, and the next week I had picked up a cold so he gave me a 10-day round of antibiotics for sinusitis. A few days after that was over, I went back and they did a chest x-ray just to make sure they weren't missing anything there, and a blood test for mono. That was negative, and the x-ray was unintersting. Tomorrow I am having a catscan of my nasal area. After that, I don't know what they will do.

In the meantime, it was time for my annual blood work, and I get every test under the sun. I was hoping to be feeling better before I had to deal with that, but I finally just gave up and got it done on Friday. We tried initially on Wednesday but I wasn't hydrated enough to get anything (I have terrible veins). So I drank a TON of water and when I went back on Friday they had to poke me 4 times, but were able to get the 10 vials they needed, so that was good.

Craig was doing great until he caught the cold I had, then started having stomach issues that snow-balled into severe gastroenteritis. He had a headache, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills, EXTREME fatigue (like he slept 20 hours a day for 3 days straight and has no memory of the few hours he was awake). After a few days of this, he was lying on the couch almost in tears because of pain in his neck. I got nervous about that and looked up symptoms for meningitis online and sure enough he had all of them except seizures which doesn't always happen anyway. So we called Tad to sit here while I took Craig to the ER (Carolyn was already in bed). It was a good thing I caught a nap that day because I had to stay up until 4 am with the ER visit. He didn't have meningitis but he was very dehydrated, so they gave him 2 liters of saline and some anti-vomiting meds through an iv. His blood tests didn't indicate infection, so it looks like just a really nasty virus. So with all of this, he had 3 visits to the student health clinic, an ER visit, and missed more than a week of school and work. So now he will be scrambling for the next few weeks to get caught up.

Carolyn had diarrhea for 2 days, but hasn't had anything else. The Lord has been very good to me and protected me from that stomach bug, too. I consider it a miracle that between Craig and the rest of the ward that I have been spared. But the Lord knows how much more serious it is for me to get those things with my altered physiology than other people, and I was told in a blessing from Craig that I wouldn't get it. So now if they cam just figure out the cause of the fever, that will be great!