We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program

For those of you who don’t read, or haven’t kept up with, my gaming blog, I have had chronic hand pain for almost two years now. I’ve gone through doctor after doctor and been told time and again that my symptoms were strange, no one knew what the problem was…and yet none of those doctors kept digging to try and figure it out. I’d have an appointment scheduled in three months to see how I was doing, or if there were any changes, and that would be that.

As a result of my complete displeasure in my treatment, I am now seeing my third Rhumetologist. I’ve also started telling my doctors of my ever growing history and what caused my displeasure with my prior doctors. As a result, I’ve found that I’ve started to be referred to some fantastic doctors – and I really like my new Rhumetologist. She actually seems intrigued by my strange symptoms and interested in solving the problem.

As part of ruling things out, she’s done a few things including sending me to a Hematologist and getting a chest x-ray done.

Why the visit to the Hematologist? Well, my blood is basically fucked. For the last year (or more) my white cells have been at 17,000 (high is apparently considered anything over 10,000). In addition to that, my inflammatory markers are bordering off the charts. From what I understand, anything over 3 is high. To give you a point of reference to where mine are, when I tested in November I was at 34; and when I tested in January I was at 17. So…as I was saying, my blood is fucked. And rather than just throwing me on some anti-inflammatory medication (that I can’t take anyways, because of the whole trying to get pregnant thing), the doctors are actually trying to figure out WHY my body is reacting the way it is.

HOORAY! Progress!

Anyhow, I went to the Hematologist (whose other specialty is oncology). As he was taking my medical history, he made note of the history of colon cancer on my father’s side of the family (we have familial polyposis in the family – which I didn’t know until AFTER this appointment). He asked me when I had been tested last, and my response was “never”. I explained to him that my father had never had issues with his testing, but had some pre-cancerous polyps removed this last visit (although that is common as you get older). I told him I’d been asking my primary care physician if I should be tested – at the insistence of my father – for several years now, and that my PCP indicated that I was young, even for early detection.

The Hematologist just shook his head and advised me that was wrong.

He stated that I absolutely should be tested, and that I should have started five to ten years prior. (Uh, great!). He told me that he would be forwarding my information to a gastrointologist, and that they would be in touch to schedule an appointment. He then proceeded to take more blood for additional testing, and indicated that if he didn’t see anything strange, we would move forward with a full body CAT scan. (I should probably note that I really liked this doctor).

Anyhow, the very next day the gastrointologist called and scheduled my appointment for last Friday. I went, gave him my history, he indicated he’d spoken with my Hematologist, and told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to have an colonoscopy done, and encouraged an endoscopy as well given my history and the fact that I was iron deficient (which is apparently common in women). He was very nice – and while he told me he wouldn’t tell me what to do, did encourage me to have the testing done before I got pregnant as it may be detrimental to wait an extended time for the testing.

However, this meant that I would not be able to attempt to conceive this month, because they cannot do the exam (or more accurately the sedation required) if I am, or may be, pregnant).

I told the doctor I was fine to do the testing (I mean, what is one month, really), and when he told me I had a good attitude about it, all I could think was “WELL, YOU WANT TO TEST ME FOR CANCER IT SEEMS REASONABLE GIVEN ALL THE FACTS”. But nonetheless, I was very disappointed and upset. No matter how many times I told myself it would be fine, I knew that I didn’t feel that was true.

To make matters worse (or better, depending on the angle you are looking at it), I went that morning to have a chest x-ray. That afternoon I got a call from the Rhumetologist’s office asking if I was coughing or had a fever – because they found abnormalities in the chest X-ray and wanted to rule out the possibility of pneumonia. But that also means that there is a possible diagnosis of sarcoidosis, and the likelihood that I will be required to have a CAT scan done. Which may mean that I am asked to stop trying to conceive for an additional month while they do the testing.

The triple whammy comes when I looked up treatment options for sarcoidosis. They consist of heavy steroid treatments, which are ALSO not pregnancy friendly. Which would mean that I would have to opt to put off treatment or opt to hold off trying to conceive while undergoing treatment.

On the one hand, I am thrilled that we seem to have some forward momentum with the problems I have been having over the past two years. On the other, I am concerned, sad and upset that I have place my conception plans on hold for an unknown period of time. I’m going on thirty six. Time is something I don’t have an infinite supply of if I want to conceive. I know that it’s not completely out the door as I get older, but I do know that it gets harder and there are more risks.

It seems right now I am in a holding pattern. Hopefully I can get all these tests done, and perhaps any treatment done, in this month so that we can try again next month. I am very apprehensive about the testing the are doing on the 27th. I am unsure what to think of it, or how I will react if the results are unfavorable. I’m mostly trying not to think about it (and pretty much failing). On the other hand, if they can finally figure out what is wrong with me, that is amazing as well.

For now, what that means for me, is that I need to engage in some activities that take my mind off of things and that occupy my time so that it moves quickly. Hopefully this is just a brief intermission.

Positive?

So after another month of trying at the end of January/early February and being unsuccessful again, I have started to become more jaded and less optimistic when it comes to peeing on sticks. More specifically, the ones that tell you that you are not pregnant. It’s not that I don’t want a positive result, it’s simply less emotionally draining if you set your mind to expect a negative. Less disappointment.

Anyhow, I had resolved myself this month to wait until the day may period started before taking another test. Because, well, the buggers are expensive and I don’t know, I was trying to live up to that whole negative attitude thing. I ovulated on February 22, so my period isn’t scheduled to start until this coming Thursday or Friday. However, for whatever reason, last night I decided that I was going to go ahead and pee on one of those early result sticks anyhow.

So there I was, sitting on the toilet, reading Ready Player One, thinking “tell me I’m not pregnant already so I can get on with my month. And, of course, everything started a I expected – the control line appeared and I continued to ignore it, waited a few minutes (I was in a good part of the book!), picked up the stick to toss it into the trash and stopped. Something was different. It was faint, but there was definitely a second line staring back at me. It was very light, but it stayed there hours later, and was still there this morning.

Of course, my first thought was “there is no way that is a positive…is it?”. So I went to the Internet and sure enough there were a million pictures and commentary where this very faint line was in fact a positive. I sat down trying to take my mind off it some, because what if it isn’t REALLY a positive. I made a cup of tea, played some video games and decided that I would simply pee on another stick later.

Of course, the next stick I peed on was negative. Although, to be fair, the urine was pretty diluted and I probably shouldn’t have tested. So I resolved to do another, and ran out for some more tests and dinner. When I got home I sat down and ate, read some more Ready Player One, and when I had to pee again got another negative. Okay, no big deal. I will take another in the morning.

So I woke up this morning, fresh full of more urine. And got another negative. I am now twelve days past ovulation. The positive I got was from very concentrated urine, but I would think my first visit of the day would also be concentrated. So now, after four tests, one positive and three negative, I’m questioning if that first test was a fluke.

Now, I’ve read a million things that say that tests, even of the same brand and in the same box, can have different sensitivities, and thus give varying results. I’ve also read that something like 15% of pregnancies result in early miscarriage, but can result in positive tests. And I’ve read to wait two days to retest (pffft…who HONESTLY has that much patience?).

At this point, I almost think I’d rather assume it’s negative and see if my period arrives at the end of the week. I mean, only ONE test had the positive. And those aren’t the greatest odds. If the weekend passes and still nothing, I will probably call my doctor.

Or…maybe I’ll try peeing on different brands and see what they say. Because patience may be a virtue, but isn’t my strongest attribute. I’m hesitant to get my hopes up at this faint, barely visible pink line, mostly because I don’t want to be devastated.

I’m curious if anyone else has had an experience like this and what those experiences were!

I Could Only Wish To Be Fourteen Again

Apparently one of the more pleasant side effects of birth control is that it tends to squelch a lot of ugly skin problems that you may experience. Something you don’t necessarily appreciate until you are no longer on birth control. Since I have stopped mine my face has simply exploded. I haven’t felt this self conscious since I dropped my camisole (that my mom had me wear under my dress shirt for band concerts) getting off the bus in the seventh grade.

I have acne in places I never recall having it before, and my face is so oily that I feel I should siphon myself into a jar so that I have fuel to supply a light source in an emergency. I mean, seriously!

Which brings me to problem two: treating it.

You see, I made the mistake of googling pregnancy friendly face care a while back. Actually, that part really wasn’t the mistake. Clicking the links that took me to a variety of pregnancy boards was. Anyhow, I can’t unsee what I saw, so now I must live with the consequences. Which means I am now hyper paranoid/concerned about what I am using to care for my skin while trying to conceive – and subsequently once I am pregnant. I did find a few recommendations that seemed….sane. And after talking to a few folks, I opted to go to my local Aveda store for some product.

Now, it’s been years since I have used anything that I couldn’t just pick up at Target. Apparently at some point in your life paying ridiculous amounts for skin care products seemingly becomes less of a priority. Anyhow, I knew when I made my decision to stop just using my lovely Oil of Olay skin scrub it was a costly decision – but it didn’t make the sticker shock any less brutal upon investigating the Aveda products. After talking to the clerk at the store, I opted to go with the Biotanical Kinetics line. I picked up a small “starter” kit, to see if I liked the results and ended up also grabbing the oil absorbing mud mask (because, oh god THE OIL).

I haven’t 100% decided if I like it yet – and I have a mild concern over the salicylic acid in the exfoliant (I may opt to look for a different exfoliant once I am pregnant), but it’s not terrible and outside of the exfoliant product is pregnancy friendly.

I suspect that it will take some time for my skin to acclimate itself to no longer having the birth control in my system, and I know that any new skin regimen is going to take time to work, but man does it suck in the interim. I mean, really, REALLY suck. I guess on the bright side, it will only get better! (I hope!).

Why Does Everything Involve Peeing on a Stick?

So, Robert and I have made the decision to start a family. We actually made the decision early last summer, and had originally planned to start trying after our upcoming vacation to Disneyland. Well, things being what they are and plans changing, we decided to go ahead and start trying after Christmas.

I had a lot of concerns. My age, his age, my weight, having been on birth control for well over a decade. And, well, if you believe what you read, it would seem that given all those factors we may be engaging in what could very well be an uphill battle. And it seems that putting it off was simply not in our best interests.

As such, bought an ovulation detection kit and started peeing on my first set of sticks. We read the instructions carefully to make sure that we did everything properly and simply waited for the smiley face to appear (I am not fucking shitting you, you get a giant smiley face when you are ovulating….). I was convinced that between my age and the birth control, I would pee on a million sticks and never see the damn smile. As it turns out, a million sticks was really six.

Despite the fact that I spent forty bucks on the damn smiley face sticks, we still planned to follow the doctor’s instructions of having sex (seriously, why does everything say “make love with your partner”? I mean, let’s be real, sometimes sex is simply sex) three to four times a week. So we were already partaking in the “attempts” before the smile appeared – but we made sure to follow the instructions on the stick as well.

However, it seems fate was not on our side this time. Robert got quite ill on January first, and I was in a nasty car crash in January second. Let me tell you, there is nothing like drooling snot and a concussion that makes me want to “make love with my partner”. So we fell short of the doctor’s orders, despite following the instructions from the stick.

Well, as it turns out, come Saturday I started my period – five days earlier than I was expecting it, but there is was nonetheless. I was a bit sad. I mean, I knew it was unreasonable to expect to be successful our first try – but so many people around me had done just that, that I guess I had set my hopes and expectations too high. I went ahead and took a test when it finished, just to be sure it wasn’t implantation bleeding, but it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know: I wasn’t pregnant.

While I was quite sad, I was also somewhat reassured that all of my plumbing is still functioning properly – or seems like it is anyhow. I was also harshly reminded exactly how light your flow becomes after extended birth control use. I will certainly miss that…hopefully I won’t have this reminder too often.

And so it is back to peeing on the damn daily sticks again, waiting for a smiley face to appear. Maybe I’ll draw some horns on the detector, so that at least it will be a devilish smiley – with curiosity and intrigue – and not any boring smiley, like all of the others.