there goes my life: January 2010

I can't believe I haven't blogged since August . . . where has the time gone??? Playing catch up isn't fun, this post will bring ya up on the happenings here in the Hanson house thru November . . . only one month behind! I swear I'm going to get caught up very soon! My last post had just about wrapped up the trip the kids and I took back to Iowa in July . . . it didn't end so well, so maybe that's why I've not been able to bring myself to finish blogging about it! Other than that, it's just been crazy around here! Right after returning home from Iowa I got to go see Kenny Chesney at Qwest Field in Seattle . . . that man cannot disappoint you, he puts on the best show EVER! Over 7 hours in the sun and under the stars, listening to the likes of Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Montgomery Gentry, Sugarland and then Kenny Chesney himself!

Joe's 20th High School reunion was early in August, it was FUN to get out and enjoy the festivities . . .

We took a little road trip with my parents to Mt. Rainier . . .

We also made a quick day trip to Silverwood, a much needed getaway for Joe and the kids to have fun and enjoy each other . . .

Mid August Jakob started his first football season, he was drafted to the Richland Raiders. We had football 4 days a week and then games on Saturdays, which didn't leave much time for anything else. Although they didn't have a terrific season, he really seemed to enjoy himself. The boys made it as far as the 2nd playoff game which finally ended their season the first weekend of November. I got tons of pics, hopefully one of these days I'll find my scrapping mojo and get some LOs done. This pic was from the first practice right after all the gear was handed out . . . and one of my absolute favorites! :)

August 31st was the very first day of Kaitie's freshman year . . . how is it possible that she's old enough to be in High School already?

And September 1st Jakob started 4th grade . . .

October 3rd was the BIG DAY . . . I ran a Half Marathon! And well besides the obvious it was a hell of a lot easier than last year. I've contemplated another full marathon, but 13.1-miles just sounds so much better than 26.2. Joe and I finally got out of town after Jakob got out of school that Friday. I felt awful the entire night . . . sick to my stomach, woke up Saturday morning feeling the exact same way, but once I actually started running the nerves finally seemed to subside. I just kept saying that I didn't remember feeling like this last year, but Joe insists that I did . . . Twenty weeks of training paid off, I got the time I was shooting for . . . 2:10:21 . . . YEAH ME!!!

We were hoping to get out of town first thing on that Friday morning. Joe and I had a Dr.'s appt. . . . we were switching family Dr.'s and had "new patient" visits, so what started out as just a routine appt. turned into the nightmare that I've been living ever since. I found out that my blood pressure was extremely high, was put on meds which I waited to start until after my race. Before leaving town though I had a ton of lab work done. By the following Thursday evening my blood pressure was 143/112. I had intense pressure in my chest and only could describe what I was feeling to feel like a clinched fist. After making several calls to the Dr. and even taking another pill, she ended up sending me to the ER where I had an EKG and also a chest x-ray done to check my lungs for a blood clot. Luckily those came back OK, but my BP only went down after being given nitro-glyercin 2X.

I'm sure some of you may remember when I participated in a "Twin Study" at the UofW back in February '09. The week after we returned home from Iowa I received a call from one of the Dr.'s at the UofW letting me know that I had some lab work come back showing something that I needed to have looked into further here. After discussing those test results with my Dr. I was referred to a Rheumatologist. What I knew at this point was that I tested positive to (2) different Anti-Nuclear Antigens, which could indicate an Auto-Immune disease. I finally got into the Rheumatologist at the end of October. Before this appt. though I already knew that from the first set of labs that I had some elevated levels, my Dr. said that there's no reason to think that the elevation and why my BP was so high had anything to do with each other. I was pretty certain the ANA patterns and this new lab work had something to do with my Thyroid. What I would have done for this to be true . . .

I had Dr. appt. after Dr. appt., never got answers, had more lab work done. It felt like a lifetime waiting for all those results to come back. As far as the positive ANAs, they say that a lot of women will test positive for them, but that it doesn't necessarily mean anything. I've always felt fine except just being tired a lot, but always thought that was from either my hypothyroidism or from all the running, seems like that's all I've done for the past two years. At the last appt. with my family practitioner before seeing the specialist my blood pressure was still up a little, but not like it was . . . it was 130/88, she was thinking that the spike in BP really didn't have anything to do with stress, that there was another underlying problem causing it, perhaps the issue I'm having with my thyroid. I had a couple of things show up in my labs that they addressed, but most of the lab work came back looking great! She said that all the running I do has definitely made me healthy, she mentioned that my body could just be totally exhausted! Made sense to me at the time . . . some of the labs came back indicating something more wrong with my thyroid than I already knew was, so I was put on another thyroid hormone. Having all those labs run prior to going into the specialist was good because at least he had something to look at.

During the first visit with the specialist, he did an exam and went over the pages and pages of lab work, he concluded with what he thinks I might have . . . a connective tissue disease, but not of the skin . . . it would be of the internal organs. He said that it is hard to diagnose, that even if I tested positive for this other ANA he still wouldn't be able to diagnose me just yet because I'm not showing any symptoms except for the high blood pressure. If my BP continued to stay high he would then put me on an ACE inhibitor to try to control that. Then he mentioned Kidney failure . . . I asked him what signs I'd need to watch out for, he proceeds to tell me that there really isn't any (well except for the obvious, not peeing) that it happens pretty quickly. So, after coming home and reading up on this disease I started to get freaked out . . . there's no cure, really no answers, not a whole lot of treatment, obviously I should have never come home and researched it. At my last appt. with the specialist he discussed with me what test options we could do next, a pulmonary function test and heart tests . . . until all of this happened to me, I honestly never understood why people refuse medical treatment . . . now I do . . . so after a lot of soul searching with family I've decided to just take it day by day and leave it up to the man above to take care of me! I realized after months of worrying myself sick over all of this that I just couldn't live my life wondering if I was going to die. I see the specialist again in a few months . . . but until then I'll live like there's no tomorrow!

Halloween came and went . . .

I even managed to get a couple of crafty things done and when I say a couple . . . I'M SERIOUS . . . it was only a couple! :)

November was a busy month too . . . my "35th" Birthday, the second anniversary of Joe's Dads passing, Jakob turned ten, Joe and I celebrated sixteen wonderful years together as man and wife, well we've had our moments too, Thanksgiving and I got to meet Sarah Palin, but only after spending all night out in 32 degree weather, but it was soooo worth it!