Bun in the Oven

Pregnancy was hard on me.  There are no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it, I was miserable.  At the time I was a flight attendant, and I was sick all the time.  Everyone on the plane wanted to touch my belly.  That was 137 passengers 6 to 7 times a day, 4 to 6 days a week touching me.  IT WAS MISERABLE.

The smell of the peanuts, the smell of the bathrooms, and we won’t even discuss the smell of the passengers did not help my morning sickness at all.  If we hit turbulence, Stormy thought it was a roller coaster and would start filling and doing summer saults. 

My hips killed me, and it would hurt to pull my bag through the airport to get to the hotel shuttle.  And although I did actually ended up losing weight while I was pregnant, I was huge.  I could not fit in the jump seat, and getting down the aisle was very interesting. 

When I mentioned all this to my doctor, he was a total jerk.  I will never forget him telling me that it sounded like a personal problem.  They did not do medical leave for Stewardesses.  I informed him that was were he was mistaken.  It was a problem with Federal Aviation Regulations and it would come back on him.

Needless to say, I got to go out on medical leave a month before Stormy was born. 

Delivery was not too bad, with enough drugs, I couldn’t feel a thing. That is until the epidural ran out.  Then they did not believe me that I could feel anything, but rest assured I could.  My dad was just sure I was going to be cussing everyone out and hitting things.  He was a little disappointed when I only said one cuss word.

After we got home, my legs began swelling like crazy and my hip was killing me to a point I could barely walk.  I called my wonderful doctor and he said it was normal.  But when I could not even fit into my maternity clothes and could not put on shoes, I knew it was not normal.

We went to the local clinic, and my blood pressure was over the roof high.  He told me the solution was to deliver.  Well, hello, I had her over a week ago.  So onto blood pressure medicine I went.  It took a while, but it finally normalized.  This was not just a regular road I was about to navigate.

Using a Garmin

Even though my blood pressure levelled out, the rest of my body did not.  I have always been able to tan, even though I am a red head, I have always tanned in a tanning bed or as a lifeguard in high school.  This kept my freckles from looking like a mask on my face, and kept me from burning when I would start at the pool. 

So after I had Stormy, I decided I needed a tan, because I though tanned fat looked better than pale fat.  If you have ever tanned in a tanning bed, you know to start off slow.  Like maybe 5 minutes slow if you are really pale.  By the end of that 5 minutes I was itching like a mad woman, to a point I was ready to claw my skin off.  I was itching in places you should not itch.  The next day, it had subsided enough to where I could at least stand it a little bit.

I had decided it was the cleaning stuff she used on the bed, so I took water with alcohol in it.  I cleaned the bed really good before I got into it again.  This time I did not even make it 3 minutes.  I was broke out from head to toe in red spots.  It got to point where I had to go to the clinic and they gave me a shot.  Don’t ask me what it was because at that point I was not very good. We still assumed it was the cleaning stuff.

One of the pools I worked at in high school was short a lifeguard and needed a fill in for the weekend.  I was available, so I offered to do it.  That night, when I got home, the tops of my legs were completely broke out, my arms and face were, and I was itching like I was in the tanning bed.

Back to the clinic I went.  This time they told me I was allergic to the sun.  WHAT?!?!?!  I have always been in the sun.  I am a sun dog.  I would rather be outside than inside any day or time.  How could someone just become allergic to the sun?  That did not make sense to me, but that is not saying much.

I have a piercing in the cartilage at the top of my ear.  I have always worn a hoop in there, or a diamond that my parents got me.  I started noticing my ear felt like it was on fire, like when I first got it done.  If I wore earrings in the other holes in that ear, my whole ear would turn read and begin to hurt.  Once I took that piercing out of my cartilage, I and if I didn’t wear an earring in my second hole, I was fine.  I had decided I could not have mixed metals in my ear. 

My hands would get these blood blisters on them.  They would itch like crazy and then break out.  I could not figure out what it was.  They would do it even when I was not in the sun.  My hair began to really start falling out when I would brush it or wash it.  I’m not talking about a little bit.  I am talking hand fulls.

I would get home from work, and I would be so incredibly tired I could not function.  I would go lay down for a nap and sleep for 2 to 3 hours, but still be able to sleep at night.  Everyone thought I was just lazy.  “You are only 26 years old, you should not be this tired.”

Y’all I cannot even begin to explain the fatigue.  You are so tired that your eyes hurt, you can’t form complete sentences, and everything hurts.  And if someone wakes you up in the middle of your slumber, it is just worse. 

A Quick Back Road

It was always a joke in our family about how ticklish I was.  My dad and my brother would come up behind me and poke me in the side, or in the neck just to watch me crumble.  I would go down instantly.  If you have watched my YouTube channel, in my about me video, I explain that I laugh about everything.  I laugh when I am sad, I laugh when someone gets hurt, I laugh when I get hurt.  I literally laugh at everything.  It does not mean that I find it funny.  It is just how I react to everything.  It is my coping mechanism.

Needless to say, when they would come up behind me, I would go into hysterical laughter and crumble to the ground.  I would tell them it would hurt, but because I was laughing so hard, they thought I was being a wimp and just saying that.  My girls got to where they would even come up behind me and poke me in the neck also because they thought it was hilarious when I would drop to the ground.

My dad would grab the tops of our knees and squeeze when he would play with us, or to get us to laugh.  Same thing.  I would fall to the ground, laugh hysterically, and everyone would think it was funny.  I would tell him the same thing, how bad it hurt.  Him and my brother would just think I was a whinny butt.  No one would believe me how bad it hurt because I would laugh. 

The Winding Road

My body would just kill me.  I was SOO tired, and I just could not figure out why.  I mentioned it to the PA at the clinic and she said we should do some blood work.  That is when she told me I had a positive ANA and positive R factor.  What that means is that I have something autoimmune going on and I tested positive for Rheumatoid Arthritis.  They had tested me for rheumatoid when I was in elementary school but said it was just growing pains.

The PA began looking for a Rheumatologist but it was a matter of finding one that would take my insurance.  The closest one ended up being 2 hours away.  When I show up, they did more blood work.  This time everything came up negative.  He still wanted me to come back but just put me on steroids and sent me on my way.

I went back a couple of times, but since that one test, he never did anymore.  He just said I showed inflammation and worked on getting that down.  After a couple of trips, I quit going.  It was not helping and I felt I was just wasting my time and money.

You see, when it comes to health stuff, my family does things different.  It never fails that the normal tests, and the normal symptoms do not apply to us.  It took them 8 years to figure out my gall bladder did not work.  Why would this be any different?  So when that rheumatologist said those test were negative, I just let it go.  After a year or so, I mentioned it all to my PA again, and had told her I had just dropped the subject.

She did blood work again.  It came back positive again, but this time, my insurance had expanded their horizons and was accepted closer to home.  She was able to get me in. 

Finally Finding Google Maps

When I go to see him, he does more blood work, and this time he showed positive as well. Remember the rashes and blood blisters I mentioned I would get on my hands?  Those would never come out when I would go to the doctor.  He asked about rashes, and I told him about them, but without seeing it, he could not say one way or the other.  He asked me a series of questions. 

Fatigue?  Ummmm yea

Hair Loss?  Yes

Skin Rashes?  Yes, in the sun, but they told me I am allergic to the sun.  And on my hands.

Joint Pain?  Yes.  I look like an old woman when I get out of bed.

Fever?  Yea, but I have always ran fever when I am tired.

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, and Tick.  Explained to me that there are many autoimmune diseases that mimic each other.  He said that some rheumatologist have trouble pinning it down, especially if one time the ANA and R Factor are positive, then negative, and then positive again.  He told me he did not see that very often, but it was possible.

He let me know he wanted to see the rash on my hands.  That would pin it down.  So the next time I got the rash I took a picture.  When I left the doctor, I had about decided that I would never see that rash again, just because he asked for a picture. 

At this point I had been living with all these symptoms for 10 years.  While I am dealing with this, Stormy had been getting random rashes all over her body as well.  I would get calls from the school that she was all broke out.  By the time I would get to the school, pick her up, get her to the doctor, the rashes were usually gone.  We would say they were heat rashes because they were worse when she was hot. 

I changed laundry detergent but had to be careful with that because I had become allergic to every kind.  That did not help.  I changes body soaps, shampoos, conditioners, watched everything she put in her mouth.  I had just decided it was an allergic reaction to something, but didn’t know what.  All I knew about hers was that it looked like hives, and itched like mine did.  But it looked different than mine.

To read more on this go to the next post.  I know this is a long one, but I really do feel like it is important to fill in the back story on this and I will tell you why at the end.