Thursday, May 21, 2015

Update- 5/2015



Hello everyone!! 

I hope the start of this year has been good, or at the very least, not super terrible for all of you... 

I am sorry for the delay in getting this post out there... I will be honest, things have been pretty busy and the thought of making a super long detailed blog post was just not very appealing, but also, I wanted to give it a few months before I decided to publicly let everyone know What was going on... Just so I wouldn't have to eat my words if things got bad again. 

This year has been phenomenal for me... 

For those of you who don't know I will give you the quick version: 

In 2013/2014 I started having some major health issues, which included very numerous swollen lymph nodes throughout my body (mostly in my lungs and abdomen but a few and my neck too ) which seemed suspicious along with seizures and other problems in my lab work... The doctors were extremely concerned but could not figure out what was wrong. I had markers for certain things rheumatological wise, but they didn't seem to add up to make a solid diagnosis that the doctors felt comfortable with. I was on a lot of medications, and dealing with a lot of severe pain for who knows what reason at that point. I was being evaluated by about 10 different specialists. I underwent bone marrow biopsy's and surgeries to remove lymph nodes , had two MRIs three CT's and a pet scan, along with EEGs. I had a couple different hospital stays .. I was a hot mess to put it lightly... It all started in the fall of 2013 but by the summer of last year was the worst ever. 

In November/December of last year I started to feel like things were getting better healthwise... I had already weaned myself off a couple of prescription medications and had plans to finish getting myself off of everything (outside of my thyroid medication, which I have switched to a natural replacement versus the synthetic version anyway). I was also doing biofeedback therapy, which I believe along with prayer and healing from God was a big reason for the improvement I was feeling... 

 I had my initial consult at city of hope late December. The doctors there were absolutely wonderful ! Honestly it is one of the best facility as I've ever been to ... I can honestly go on and on about them but I'll stop here ... Moving on... They were reluctant to do another surgery and seemed to be pleased with the results that they had from the previous biopsy, that Beaver medical did, which stated that everything was benign. But they did want me to see a couple of other specialists in their facility first, to rule the infectious disease stuff and also meet with their rheumatologist. So they took some blood again that day and I made an appointment for a follow up in January. 

January came, I was feeling even better and was now off all prescription medications other than my thyroid. I was still doing the biofeedback therapy, and had started moving on to taking herbal things to manage my symptoms. A couple of those supplements were Tumeric, Wobenzyme N, and a couple of sub lingual homeopathic remedies. Which was encouraged to me by the physicians at city of hope. (they did not give specific recommendations but did suggest that I look into alternative methods for pain and symptom management versus prescription)

I went back for my follow up-

I met with their rheumatologist, and infectious disease specialist. At this appointment things were very encouraging as I had no signs whatsoever of any swollen lymph nodes and my lab work was pristine. (minus my body showing a Hashimoto's flare). Everything seem to have calmed down and they were extremely pleased to hear that I was off all the prescriptions (mainly the pain pills and Nerve blockers they had me on)  . They gave me a clean bill of health and told me to enjoy not having to see doctors for a long time! I do have to go back in about a year for a recheck just to have a scan. But other than that I am free to live life. :) 

We went over some of the reasons why some of this could have started... They believe a lot of it was a combination of my immune system flaring and getting worse with Hashimoto's, combined with stress, combined with multiple doses of very high strength methotrexate to terminate ectopic pregnancies. (I had four ectopic pregnancy's between 2012 and 2013- three of those were terminated with methotrexate and the fourth one (sept 2013), just a mere two months after the third , needed surgery, and they accidentally cut my bowel open in the process.), all of the methotrexate seem to give me an adverse reaction... combined with the  immune problem that i have in my body that causes it to attack pregnancies, all of that , basically created a firestorm in my body. They (City of hope ) were the only ones who really took into account my history in the last few years when they were making opinions about it all...  Of course we will never really know exactly why or how or what went wrong.... But it did make sense.

At that point all I had to do was hope and pray that I wouldn't have any more seizures (which they think was a result of being put on Xanax) and then I would be able to drive again in March... We were very excited but also very cautiously optimistic... I was terrified things were going to come back and get bad 
again...

But the months have ticked by, and things have only gotten better. My biggest struggle right now is just getting my thyroid back in range, along with making sure I keep my salt intake Up so dysautonomia stays at bay , and that seems rather small in comparison to all of the  issues that were going on last summer... 

So that's what's going on... We are thanking the Lord for all of his good work, and are just enjoying life right now. It seems like as soon as my health got better life got really really busy! But I'm loving it and I'm very thankful that I'm capable of doing the things that need to be done ... 

Oh and a quick foster care update: We 
Are still waiting to get in for training it has been really difficult with Jared getting a promotion and his schedule changing. Agency is rather small and does not have a lot of options when it comes to the training so it's taking a lot longer than we anticipated, but we still plan on following through with it. We hope to adopt from the foster system eventually. Our hearts have always been open and wanting to adopt, but of course cost is a huge factor so this will open up the ability for us to do so without costing 30 - 70,000 bucks ... So we are also looking into other ways of adopting... 

Prayers regarding all of that are also super Duper appreciated! :) 

Thank you all for your prayers throughout the months I know that is what made all of the difference! We are so very thankful for all of our friends both near and far, and extremely grateful for the church body that God has placed us in, here in California. We are looking forward to seeing what the rest of 2015 is going to bring!! :) 


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