So I was asked the other day if I was journaling these past few months and if you know me, I have a history throughout my life of never keeping a consistent journal. I always think I'll remember that and guess what??? Lately Ive realized that there's so much that I don't remember. More importantly, what good is "my" memories when I'm gone, if they're not written down for those still here on earth? Well I was in the hematologists office and was reading the new Oprah magazine for April and she had a article on journaling and shared some of her own pages from her journal. Well that inspired me and later that day was when I was asked if I was keeping a journal through all of this. Can you say SIGN? Ive looked back at my journals from over the years and I have to laugh. I found that for the majority of my entries, that they were the times when things were rough or when a boy I liked was being dumb. I never documented alot of the other stuff that is so important in family history. Well these past three months have just been...well.....difficult yet inspiring. Scary but a blessing. Sad but joyful. Isn't that how its supposed to be? Ups and downs and in betweens? How nice would it be to document ALL of it, the good, bad and in between. Also why is it that it is so difficult for me? Geeez I so admire those who are so good at it. I just palin forget half the time to do it. So I guess I accept the fact that I'm gonna forget and just try to do better and these past three months are a start.
Lets go back to January 17th 2011. Was so excited to start the first day of rehearsal for HAIRSPRAY with the Queen creek performing arts center. Ive grown to love this theatre and have made some great friendships with some talented people. So here we are learning choreography to "You cant stop the beat". Things were ok I was "kinda" getting it LOL. Next thing I knew I was standing there and my lower leg buckled, left knee dislocated and TIMBER I was down! I look up and realized the knee CAP IS STILL OUT! So paramedics were called and they cut my 50.00 pair of new jeans!!! So I get to Mercy Gilbert with my good friend Lola and my mom, Robert and my brother meet us there. There they give me a blessing and by the time the DR. xrayed and spoke with us the cap moved back. I was ecstatic! I was put in a knee stabilizer and was told to follow up with an Orthopedic surgeon. I make the appointment for that coming Wednesday. Twylla takes me that morning and by that time I had experienced really bad leg pain and discoloration when I stood up. So we talk about the knee where he proceeded to talk down to me and was just plain a rude person. I told him about my leg pain and he says its fine. Orders an MRI and off I go feeling like he was a OOBER jerk. So Thursday I go in for the MRI and on Friday afternoon at around 4 'clock I get a call from his office to get to the nearest hospital ASAP because the MRI is showing a blood clot. I was in disbelief so I call Twylla and ask her if she can take me to the ER. I of course had to change, sponge bath myself, put on fresh underpants as a nervous Twylla is wondering what the heck I was doing and how come we weren't leaving RIGHT NOW??? Ya I know...that's just me! LOL We head to Banner Ironwood where we meet Robert. So they take me right back and I was getting a Doppler ultrasound of the leg. Here I think that its just in my calf when the tech calls in another tech and when I ask, "so you see it in my calf?" She says, "no honey its your whole leg!" I held it together until they wheeled me back and I saw Twylla and Robert with our home teacher. I bawled!! All I could think of was my kids! I was terrified at that moment!! They started Lovenox injections in my stomach and started on 10 mg of coumadin. There I stayed 5 days and they sent me home. Well the in house orthoped said that he looked at my report and that I had only torn the medial femoral ligament. To practice bending my knee etc. Well after that I find out that I had a stomach infection and started antibiotics which can cause your INR to go up. Basically your INR is a measurement of how thin your blood is to help prevent against new clots. Good range for me is between 2.0-3.0. Well antibiotics did mess with my numbers and I was at 3.9. We adjusted the dose and things were better. In the middle of that I had a small concern and ended up with a mammogram....no worries as it came back clear! :)
I went to Dr Levine to discuss the MRI report because the findings where listed as 5 different issues going on and I obviously cant read it. There I find out that I had broken my Patella. Next step was a new knee stabilizer and a stern, "you shouldn't have been trying to bend that knee it is broken!" Yep you gotta love the other DR in the hospital. So he said lets do a CT of the knee in two weeks and see if its fused together on its own and if it has...no surgery!! He didn't want to attempt to do surgery because of the clot possibly breaking free and causing a Pulmonary embolism which is life threatening. So I had Robert and my bro in law Dave give me a blessing and when we got the results...NO SURGERY! It fused beautifully on its own. I was then released for therapy and I was one happy lady.
So during this time I had been complaining that I could lift my lower leg up by itself. I had been told by my internist that it was probably just weakness from not moving it for 2 months. Well it also felt numb and one day I was in physical therapy and was told that something isn't right with this leg (by then it had started to swell pretty bad) , that I couldn't come back until I had the clearance from the Vascular surgeon of the status of the clot. So we leave and I'm in tears because I didn't want to stop therapy. THAT was the only thing getting me mobile. Well they ultrasound me and see no clot!! I was so happy!!!! Still didn't answer why I couldn't move my leg and send me home.
Friday March 18th I go in to Dr Levine and he says, somethings not right with that leg! I said I KNOW! I cant feel it and I cant move it! So he does a nerve conduction test and sees that I have decreased function of them in my ankle and says that we need to get down to why I'm swelling because I could potentially loose all function to my lower leg. WOW!! Seriously?? How do you take that in? So I had already called a vascular surgeon and had made the appointment for the following Wednesday. Well Sunday late afternoon I started having a GI bleed. Called DR and he said if its worse, to head to ER. Well it got worse so off we went. Showed up at Banner Ironwood and my awesome friend Amy D meet us and relieved Rob and she took such great care of me! I received 4 bags of plasma and vitamin K to clot up my blood. They said that since they didn't have a GI Dr there that they were sending me to Banner Desert, so off I went. Arrived early Monday a.m. where DR Sott was amazing! He FINALLY listened to my concerns about the swelling and how I couldn't move it. That evening I met with a hematologist in my hematologists office and she said that they wanted to put an IVC filter in even if there wasn't a blood clot anymore in my legs. Well they did an ultrasound and saw nothing and I was wheeled down to radiology to get the filter in. An amazing Interventional Radiologist named Dr Snow came and said, "why are we putting this filter in you if you don't have a clot?" So my other Dr's and him agreed to do a venous gram with contrast to check for clots in the legs. If there were some, he was going to do the filter. Well there were some iddy biddy ones so they made the decision to put it in. Well the process of an IVC filter (Inter Vena Cava filter) goes in through the large vein in your neck, where they release it down in the vein to where it branches off to the other major veins that reached your legs etc. The filter is supposed to catch any loose clots that could travel to the lungs, but isn't something that you would want to keep in long term. I was told by DR Snow that I needed to be back in a couple weeks and get it out. So during my stay from the 20th of March - April 1st in the hospital, I had a bladder infection, multiple MRI's, Xrays and CT's, and got a huge hematoma from the blood thinner injections. Crazzzzy huh? So I find out that I have a bulging disc in my back and get seen by a neurosurgeon. He then suggests that they MRI my LEG!! Hmmm go figure, since that's the issue! So they do that on Mon March 28th and the next morning I finally have answers, I have damage to my Femoral Nerve which is your big nerve in your leg. Why do you ask is there damage? Hmmmm not one of the experts know why and I was referred to the Mayo clinic. Now that bit of news was heart breaking. How could I live like this? How can I be a good mom, photographer and just do things that are so mundane?? Now keep in mind these were my initial shock thoughts filled with fear and when you lose something that you take for granted such as walking...its devastating. So they told me that I could regain function in months, years or maybe never but we needed to find out whats been causing the damage. They fit me with a special brace that should help me walk without crutches. I admit I was an emotional mess for a good few days and couldn't talk about it without sobbing. Then I realized that I needed to suck this up and that things would be ok. So I get home and within a few days my incision site where they put the filter in gets infected. I go into my fam Dr and they start antibiotics and he lances it. I get the referral in to the Mayo clinic and the next day it was reviewed and APPROVED!!!! Yay!!!! That same day on Monday I see the hematologist (mine this time Dr. Bahalla) and he says that we needed to get this filter taken out ASAP. I just love him. He actually listens to his patients and is down right brilliant! Br Bahalla gets the request in for the removal and I get scheduled for Friday April 8th. Twylla drives me and my mom meets us. I get back to prep and they take one look at my leg and order another ultrasound of my huge swollen leg. They were concerned that my clots were getting bigger and if they were they weren't taking out my filter. Everything was good so we proceed with the procedure of taking it out. Well sadly the top of the filter that has the hook to remove it was attached to the vein wall. Only happens to 1-2% of patients!!! REALLLY?????? They were in there for what should be a 30 min- 1 hour tops procedure for 2 and 1/2 hours!!! So they stop and we are supposed to try again this week.
+So I sit here enjoying the beautiful rain with my sore neck. To be honest, wondering how many more things need to go wrong before I break? I then remember that overall with all of these things happening to me, that I HAVE been comforted and watched over from my Heavenly Father. He really is here and I can feel it and those times when I'm really struggling he sends one of his amazing angels to talk to me and let me cry on their shoulders. Twylla is one of those and I couldn't imagine my life without that crazy fun red head! Who can laugh over nothing when lifting my chub of a leg into the car......US! She has enriched my life so much and I adore her! Thank you for everything! Love you! I really have been blessed with some amazing people that have helped me with meals, picking kids up, cleaning, watching kids, a haircut for me, phone calls, hospital visits, driving me to appointments and above all PRAYERS! If it weren't for that I believe that I couldn't handle this load. For that THANK you!! So that wraps up my entire last few months with medical stuff. The family is OK. The kids have had it rough at times with me being gone but overall they are doing OK. Kim made a beautiful yarn art that I'm going to get framed and hung, She has so many talents and is so creative. Kyle actually was reading a book this week!! Can you believe it? It was so neat to see him do it on his own. Lydia went on Project Ex in March and had a blast. Maddie is still a stinker but is starting to read more since she started a program called head sprouts at school. Robert has been at M& W group for four months and they keep him busy that's for sure. :) So in closing will I ever get the fire to document my life in journals? Seriously whats my deal? LOL I sure hope so and hopefully I'll remember that if I'm not writing it down, then all these things that make me who I am , won't be read and learned from. So starting today...here's to the start of finding the joy in journaling....gotta start somewhere right?
