Long days and even longer nights..

So as always I am awake in the middle of the night. I dont know what my deal is with sleep here lately.. but it needs to stop.
We went to Amarillo this morning and turned in the last of the paperwork on our end, still waiting on the credit report to come back. Hopefully all that was taken so long is talking to Leisa about us renting here, but who knows. I think they called her Tuesday or Wednesday so maybe it will be back on the 3rd by the time the underwriter gets to look at our loans.
I talked to Dr. Ramos office about me having muscle twitches at night. They were going to put me on 2 different meds becuase I had forgot to tell them that Dr Weber had put me on Abilify. So they just me on a muscle relaxer. I talked to Dr Weber and he said he thinks its just stress. I hope so becuase the other end of that would be lupus messing with my central nervous system and especially since im pretty sure Dr Weber attributes my moods to something auto immune. He also said that he thought me feeling like shit and getting light headed may be due to being out of the phentermine (diet pill) so I got everything refilled and im going to start taking them tomorrow. Its either that or once again, stress.I have to quit taking the hydros becuase he said they were addicting and so are the xanax but I need them right now, so hes making me stop the hydros. Damn. =) TOTALLY JK Dont startgoing around accusing me of shit lol.Im actually glad hes starting to take me off something even if its just one. I am tired of all these pills. I would rather just be on the immune suppressant.
On a side note, my dog begs me for ice. How many of you know that dogs that eat ice? haha GOODNIGHT! 

Its a deal!

We made a deal today! They offered 93 paying up to 3200 closing and the 380 something for the insurance on the appliances and heating and air and septic tank and all that good stuff, also leaving the bar stools and cabinet that I wanted left! Hopefully they will leave the 4 wheeler and stuff since their down sizing and probably wont be using it anymore. I have to take papers to Amarillo tomorrow for the loan and they are going to fax a copy of the contract.. we are almost done! We had some problems getting an employment verification of all the things we could have trouble with.. Hopefully I got it straightened out today and we wont have to wait for it come time for the loan.
We finally had a pretty day where the kids could play outside. I didnt remember how much I enjoyed the kids playing outside, until it was so quiet inside and I could make phone calls to the realtor and about the loan without them getting in trouble constantly.
Overall a pretty good day! =)

Good day!

I felt so good today even though I didnt sleep good last night! Our heater went out again and I had to plug in the floor heaters and our breaker usually blows when we have them on so I guess I was worried about the alarms not going off for Cody to go to work, well that and the damn dog laying on me! I cleaned and mopped the whole house except for the kitchen, and then washed all the bedding, then I cooked spaghetti and made a chocolate cake for Cody to take to work tomorrow that says, "Happy New Year!"
They counter offered on the house today. They accepted paying up to 3200 in closing costs, leaving the bar stools and shelf that was Tishas dad's when he lived there and everything else including the time line to wait on the loan, except they wanted 95 instead of 88. So we countered with 91000. I hope they will come down some, I really dont think I want to pay 95 when the outside is awesome and the house needs so much to me. The barns are probably the nicest part of the whole thing! lol The house isnt bad just outdated I guess.. just needs some paint and my touch and it will be a great home! Ive already got plans for all the rooms except the kids/guest bathroom. I cant decide if I want to go with something more kiddish or simple since its the guest. I am definitely putting "Get Naked" on my bath tub! lol I am going to go soak in a hot bath speaking of! Yall have a great day!

..wipe your hands, shake it off, then you stand

Today was a pretty good day. We went and looked at that house again. I dont know if the house is worth it, but for Cody the barn, shop and land are definitely worth it. We made an offer after we went and looked at it, maybe no news is good news that they didnt reject it already!
Ive felt ok all day today. I finally got my antibiotics called in and picked em up, and had my blood checked. My white count is a little higher still about half what it should be, and my platelets are at 82. They have came up from last Monday from 75. My monocytes are still high and some other things are still low, but over all im pretty good. Dr. Periman said that if we couldnt get it cleared up that I needed to see an infectious disease doctor to get it taking care of, so hopefully this is my last round with Staph,I dont need another doctor! They also said I was probably getting nauseous (sp?) and headaches from being mentally and physically exhausted with worrying about everything and my body constantly fighting this infection. Maybe that is all it is, becuase ive been feeling like shit.
I hope all of yall reading this had a good day and feeling good! Those of us with autoimmune diseases know how precious a good day can be! =)

I just want to be fixed

I am nauseated and have a headache and itchy tonight. I dont know why someone cant just hear me say I just dont feel good and them say.. ok lets fix that. Instead of a fix they give me 20 million pills.. for stuff I dont even complain over. I JUST WANT TO BE FIXED

Happy birthday Jesus!

We had a great day today! We were told that the loan we were applying for did not give pre-approval letters so we could not make an offer on the house that we want until after the beginning of January.. A letter came in today pre-approving us for way more than we need! YAY! We still havent heard back on the short sale house, good thing we arent waiting on it still or I would be losing my mind. We will just turn down the contract when it comes back. My mom went to get my antibiotics today and they didnt have them called in. I dont know who dropped the ball, they were standing right there when he said he would give me antibiotics. So duh. go call them in! They wont be there this week either. Guess I will call the answering service on Tuesday. I swear nothing of mine comes without a fight.. not even a simple prescription for antibiotics.I would rather have em in an IV anyways. Maybe I can talk Periman into it.
The kids opened their presents tonight and loved every single one of them! Well, all except my sisters little bugs that walk! They were very scared of them! lol They loved their leap pad thingys and im glad. I think Hailey will learn alot from hers becuase she can see it really good and it uses all her senses.
Laundry is calling my name.. and so is bed!

...to accept the things I can not change.

This is my first entry. I decided I needed a space that was mine, not my kids, not my husbands, just.. mine. To sum 2011 up for me, I almost got a divorce twice, and was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases. Im sure someones years has been much worse, but for me, this has been the worst year of my life. But for an opener, maybe I shouldnt be so depressive. Im going to go back and fill in blogs from before until now so maybe we can all understand me alittle more, and maybe I can find some peace in myself through myself. Im going to try not to go back and delete the bad days, I need to remember them for the good days.

Another one really....

Today I was frustrated. I have ANOTHER Staph infection. This is getting really old and I am so tired of pills. I just want it to be over. Its not fair I have this problem and its not fair that Im always on the shit end of the stick. Fuck this im going to bed.- Is basically how I felt at the end of Thursday. Cody said you dont always have to be mad at the world, I said I dont always have to feel like shit and be tired and have low blood counts and reoccuring infection but I do so i can hate the world if I want to! Everyone is going to be closed Friday and Monday for Christmas so im going to call Tuesday and see if Periman will help me with me white count before the end of the year when my deductible starts over.

hmmmm

So I go in scared of this stupid biopsy on Monday. Its snowing outside and just gloomy period. I go in and my platelets are at 75!! He decides my blood looks good under a microscope and that my platelets are kind of leveling out. I DONT HAVE TO HAVE THE BIOPSY!!! YAYYYYYYYY! My white count is still half of what it should be, but im just glad to be left alone.

YAY!!

Today I step on the scale and I have lost almost 30 lbs! I have lost all my prednisone weight plus a couple of lbs!!!!! What a good day!

Cancelled

They had made me an appointment for that next Thursday which I cancelled becuase I was running out of money for gas and the copay. Valerie called and I explained to her I was out of money and she said well dr. periman had planned on doing a bone morrow biopsy. WTF? Are you serious? Doesnt that hurt? She assured me I would be fine. Yeah right thats what you said about rituxan too.

Sunday

 

I went to the hospital Sunday for a cbc which was at 45. Maybe I did stop dropping??

 

I wont go into the specifics of today or tomorrow. But I was having panic attacks and the depression had hit me hard and heavy. It was a really bad 2 days. I just put it on here to remember days like this weekend, and be greatful when im not so depressed all the time. I went to the doctor that Monday and he put me Abilify to aid the antidepressant give me more energy. Its worked so far. It was just really bad..

Texas Oncology again...

I had to go to Dr. Esler becuase Periman was gone. My platelets are at 41. He decides he wants to see if im going to have a baseline. Basically that maybe my normal is lower than most others. Maybe ill stop dropping.

Drop

I had an appointment with my rhuematologists nurse practioner and was messing with my  cuticles and they bled forever. I finally had to ask for a band aid for a dang cuticle. Ive already had another staph infection and really worried about my white count and now im worried about my platelets again. She tells me that they are basically 95% sure that I have lupus but they do not want to give me that label until they are 100% sure. They dont seem concerned that I am still having to deal with alll of this while i wait on that last 5%. My platelets come back at 46000

Hailey

Somewhere at the first of December, Tisha is talking to a friend that is telling her about little kids that have trouble seeing and that they start to learn how to learn with different senses besides vision. They kind of have what we think is behaviorial problems becuase they learn with sound and touch so they are bouncy and loud. Ive swore Hailey had adhd since right after she turned 2. She got her first pair of glasses right after she turned 3. She is still failing her vision test at school even with the glasses. I am going to have her evaulated after the first of the year to see if maybe occupational and speech therapy can help her. Most parents dont like the idea of their kids having to have therapy and I dont think Cody does, but when you think something is wrong, and find out maybe its a simpler problem than you thought, then it sounds like a good idea to you.

Birthday, thanksgiving, & football!

Tomorrow is Haileys 5th birthday and Thanksgiving. Today is me and Co's 4th anniversary. Our offer was FINALLY sent  to the Amarillo office after waiting on all the paper work. I guess ill go ahead and put black friday's post in here too. Thats when I knew something was really wrong again. I couldnt do black friday. I got hot and sick and had to wait in the truck. What a long night. I did get a new 51 inch tv and some of my christmas shopping out of the way before I had to leave.

And go cowboys for the thanksgiving game!

Short sale pain in the ass.

A short sale on a mortgage means the seller has tried to sell it for what the owe and can no longer make the payments. It means "short on funds" sale. We made an offer on what we didnt know what was a short sale today.

Sick

I am starting to feel sick again, ive had staph infections and I just feel pregnant again. I know my platelets are headed south. Im worried about my immune syhstem not taking care of the Staph infection.

DONE!

Today is my last day of prednisone!! My face swelling and all the side effects are starting to go away. I almost look and feel normal!

Good week!

Today I have another check up with Dr Periman and my platelets are at 233! Im doing great coming off the prednisone! He says in 2 weeks I can be compeletely off. Tomorrow I have an appointment with Dr. Weber to just get a check up and he is going to start me on diet pills to help me lose the 20 + lbs I gained on prednisone. YAY for a good week!

Fibro

Today was my second appointment with Dr. Ramos. My ana's came back positive again and he suspects I may have Sjorgrens syndrome even thought I do not have the symptoms. He diagnosed me with fibromyalgia becuase of all the pain in my pressure points and starts me on cymbalta which is an antidepressant and a treatment for dibro. The other treatment that he liked that wasnt an antidepressant messes with your bone morrow and having ITP, I cant have it. So now im looking at having 4 different kinds of autoimmune diseases, its just going to take awhile to get diagnosed.

Platelets leveling..

 

I went to amarillo and checked my platelets. Still great at 109 even thought they have dropped, they are still normal. Im on 20 mg of prednisone now. ALMOST DONE

Funeral

Grandpa's funeral was this morning. I went and bought a thing of roses and a ribbon that said Granpa that I plan on drying the roses with and keeping the ribbon. The newspaper put the wrong picture with his obituary and didnt put half of the information needed in there. They didnt even put what time the funeral was. It was very disappointing. It was a very sad day. My aunt sue took it really hard, they were the closest out of the brothers and sisters and last 2 left. Later that day I finally signed the papers on my new nissan altima. Its black outside and black leather inside. Ive been trying to buy this car for awhile, I think grandpa had a hand in it.

Granpa

Today was my check up with my surgeon to make sure I was healing ok and which I was. My appointment was at 10:40 and before I could get back grandpa passed away. My mom and Susan were with him when his blood preesure started falling and left us. It was very hard to watch my mom go through this.  I cried by myself and tried to find a way to explain to my kids that granpa had gone to heaven.

Granpa

Today my school started and im taking 2 classes, algebra and child psychology. Hopefully an easy semester with all im dealing with. I mentioned Granpa started getting bad the day before my surgery. Susan mom and me are taking care of him with the nurse coming by twice a week. Its hard when he tries to get up becuase he falls, we started telling him his legs were hurt and he couldnt get up. Sometimes he was in his right mind and sometimes he was in the past. He talked about travel alot which I guess was normal. I was on 30 mg and still detoxing so I still had alot of issues of detoxing and couldnt be around abunch of people. When my uncle started coming over to help them I started staying home and usually just cooked them supper. It was hard to watch him go through this.

School starts, 1st visit with Ramos

Haileys first day of school I dropped her off and she was very excited to go! I could not get over the way people were looking at me like "What did she do to herself?" Its very hard to go through what prednisone does to you, and I didnt need people reminding me of what I looked like, just let me enjoy my childs first day of school. I know I should have been able to just get over it and deal with my kids first day of school, but I did, it was after I left her at her class room that everyone seen me leaving and gave me all the looks. Its just hard.
Today was my first appointment with a rheumatologists that can diagnose any autoimmune diseases I may have other than ITP. We suspect Lupus becuase my history of infections, my white count being consistently low with my platelets, my hair falling out before the prednisone started, my joint pain, and these weird rashes I get on my legs when ive been in the sun to long or get out of the tanning bed which is a sign of lupus through sun sensitivity. Dr Ramos was kind of hard to understand but overall it was a good visit. He poked my pressure points and all of them hurt, I said no to a couple where he didnt think i was crazy. He ordered blood work and a back xray since thats the joint that seems to hurt the most.

Regular appointment

I had to go to see Dr Weber today. My echocardiogram came back alright I didnt have blood around my heart! I was told to stay on the protonix which is the antacid until I was off the prednisone. Hailey's meet and greet to start prek was also today. Its very hard to go in public looking the way I look with all this extra weight and fat acne face, but I braved it and went and got her started at school.

What are they going to be?

6 days after my surgery I had to go to the local hospital for a cbc to check my platelets again. 222!!!! OMG What in the world worked so well is all we kept saying? Even Valerie when she called me said I dont know what worked but im glad it did! I was told to start my drop in prednisone starting the next day to 40 mg. That drops withdrawals wasnt so bad.. just a little pain and tiredness.

Today is surgery day at noon at BSA day surgery! I go in get my iv and everything goes great. I am sitting there talking when they knocked me out so I didnt have to get nervous about that at all, and when I wake up I find that him taking my belly button ring scar was kind of like a mini tummy tuck.
I also find out that my platelets went from 106 to 129 from yesterday morning to yesterday afternoon. Something worked wonderfully well. I didnt get enough rituxan for it to be the reason, so what was it?

Oh happy day!

All I can think of when I go to my doctors appointment is please leave me alone for at least a week. Just leave me alone. Get me off all this shit and leave me alone. I know hes going to try to schedule a splenectomy. I am sitting there about to throw up and have a panic attack when the doctor walks in and says, "LETS DO SURGERY!"   OMG WHAT!! My platelets are at a 106 which is no where near normal but ok for my gallbladder surgery! I am sent to a surgeon who I would recommend to anyone for anything! HIs name is Dr McKinney In amarillo! He was great and explained everything and knew all about my situation and assured me I would be fine! Not once did I ever feel scared with him doing my surgery! He kept saying, do you need this? (talkin about my belly button ring scar) and I kept answering no. I was sent to do my pre op blood work and another chest xray was not needed thank goodness.
I guess I need to see this is the day my grandpa got bad. He had been dealing with colon cancer that was spreading for some time now, and we got a call during all of this saying he had fell and that Meals on Wheels had found him thank goodness. We are agravated we werent called sooner and we didnt know how we could get him picked up from the emergency room in Borger when im preoping at BSA. Thats the day they told us he couldnt stay by hisself anymore.
Also, Im at BSA becuase none of my doctors were comfortable with me having the surgery in Borger, they wanted me as close to Coffee Memorial blood center as they could get me.

One of the scariest days of my life

I decide that I am going to go into Texas Oncology and talk to Valerie and quit being a pussy about it. She assures me that is it not chemo and that I will be ok. I go in, have the IV put in, get a bag of fluids,  IV benadryl incase of a reaction, and oral tylenol. I had a little cough from whatever was going on with my chest so I didnt think anything about it after they started the rituxan and Im clearing my throat and coughing a little bit. O but the nurse did. He spun around like a gun went off with just a little tiny cough. I couldnt help but laugh and im sure he thought I was crazy. He turned my rituxan off and gave me more benadryl. I was instructed to relax and go to sleep. I tell my mom and cody that they can go do whatever they want now becuase I shouldnt have any more reactions with all this benadryl in my system. They leave and I go to sleep only to wake up literally feeling my chest and throat closing up. All I could say is Valerie its tight.. its tight. They immediately turned my rituxan off and gave me more benadryl. You would be surprised how much you dont freak out when this happens, maybe you know in the back of your head if you freak out you really wont be able to breathe. All I remember is my hands on my knees and concentrating on breathing and hearing my wheezing that was so loud it felt loud enough for the whole chemo room to hear. The benadryl was pretty fast acting and in a few minutes I could breathe normal but now it was time for my little freak out. OMG I JUST ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF THIS SHIT! Im told that my body is not going to accept the rituxan and this is not going to be a treatment choice for me. All I can think of is Dr. Periman saying if this didnt work we would have to take my spleen out and I was not ready for that. I was so scared. Apperently my feeling like my wheezing was loud enough for the room to hear wasnt just me becuase he told me that he could hear it across the room after I woke up. I never want another treament again. I get home and feel like shit and im tired. O yeah, on top of the benadryl they gave me for the 2 reactions they gave me steroids in my iv on top of my steroids I had already taken for the day. I had 260 mg of steroids that day. I get home and I cant lift my head off the couch becuase the pressure is so bad in my head if I lift it I cant see. Im tasting so much blood and im afraid to go to sleep. I write down everything that Cody might need to know if I dont wake up or something happens with all the numbers and instruct him that they are not to give me anymore steroids in any form or ill hurt him.
I guess I need to tell you how rituxan it supposed to work. It kills the production of your B lymphocytes which is part of your white blood cell count. It is thought that these lymphocytes might be what is tagging my platelets for death and maybe we could stop it if we stopped the lymphocyte production. I am informed that it is actually "pretty kool" becuase it is a MOUSE antibody WRAPPED IN A HUMAN ANTIBODY. NO fucking wonder I am allergic to it, Do i look like a damn mouse to you?

Withdrawals

No one tells you coming off this shit that it hurts so bad. Just the 20 mg a day drop hurt so bad I almost couldnt take it. Every joint in my body hurt and I was taking pain meds like they were candy. I had to take 3 naps just to make it through the day for a couple days. I called Valerie and she said that its called steroid withdrawls. Are you kidding me. I dont know how much more I can take.

Not good enough

I have another appointment today with my regular hematologists. My platelets came up to 74000. The IVIG worked, but if it had worked good enough I would have been in the 300's he said. Were beginning to wonder if all this is worth taking my gallbladder out becuase a normal ITP patient would have shown more improvement by now. He sets me up with a internal something doctor to see how bad my gallbladder really was and if we could just leave it. He sets me up an appointment to try rituxan another IV treatment on that Friday and dropped my prednisone to 60 mg a day. THANK GOD.

My life saver

Today I have an appointment with Dr. Weber. I go in with my mom and my blood pressure is high and im freaking out and I have so much pressure in my head I literally think the pressure is causing me to bleed in my head and im tasting blood. I go in and he thinks maybe the high doses of prednisone is making my tissue lining in my stomach thin and im tasting blood from there. He puts me on an antiacid and XANAX. I dont know if I could have made it through this summer with out that little pink pill. It literally probably saved me. It calmed me down and I had to start out on a quarter of it and even that knocked me out. I LOVED IT. Dr. Weber was my second opinion in all of this and I dont know if I would have done ok through this without his understand and sympathy.

sore

 

I am getting all of this from a little calendar I kept, apperently today I was in significant enough pain just to write, sore back.. sore everything. I can not describe to you what prenidone does. It literally turns your world upside down. I was so depressed.

IVIG

I have an appointment at 8 am to go to Texas Oncology to see another hema becuase Dr. Periman is out of town and my platelets are falling quickly. They decided to do an IVIG treatment. IVIG stands for IV Immuno globin which is people donated antibodies. The treatment is very expensive and takes thousands of donors to make one treatment. The purpose is to see if these antibodies will kill the antibodies that are marking my platelets for death in my spleen. Im hooked up to an IV, given a bag of fluids, IV benadryl (in case of an allergic reaction) and then oral tylenol. They then start my treatment. I dont have a reaction but I have to be given a baby heel warmer becuase the fluid is so cold going into my arm my muscle is cramping. Meanwhile I KNOW I need to be sent to a rheumatologists that something is definitely wrong and no one besides Dr. Weber wants to listen to me. So today, Im having all these side effects of prednisone, ive gained about 20 lbs in a few weeks becuase of it, and my face IS HUGE! And I dont mean just kinda swollen fat i mean HUGE. I looked deformed literally. I couldnt wear my contacts becuase the prednisone messed with my vision and my face was so fat my glasses squeezed my head and gave me headaches on top of all the other things I was dealing with. I cant win.
After coming home very exhuasted and taking a nap, I wake up feeling like I have allergies and a slight cold, other than that im ok.

The killer prednisone

O yes, I am def getting my busy work done. My house is spotless, I cant think straight to do my own bills which I have done for 7 years with the same ones over and over basically. I even cleaned out my dryer hose. YEAH. I cant sleep, Im mean, I cant be around more than one person at a time, people are moving to fast around me, and im losing my mind. Then I start getting these crawling feelings inside of my head. Seriously what do these people have me on? O and I have steroid acne all over my fat face and back.. UGH

Scary

I had a CBC ran at the community hospital here instead of making the drive to Amarillo, and my results, my platelets have dropped to 33000. WTF is going on. Now im freaking out and calling Dr. Weber and saying OMG im going to bleed out and alskdjflkas djflkjaselkrj is how I sounded to him im sure.lol My hematologists obviously started kind of frekaing out too and decided that maybe the prednisone was slowing down the rate at which my platelets were falling. So here we go with prednisone again, up to 80 mg a day. The highest recommended dose. Now heres a tale to be told.

Spleen scan

I had my liver/spleen scan today to make sure that my liver was working correctly and that my spleen wasnt enlarged or anything abnormal. It wasnt everything came back just fine. The problem with today was my body hurt again. My hips and back were killing me, no one told me that coming off prednisone hurt just as bad as getting on them. The reason for that is my body was inflamed and we didnt know it, so when I started the prednisone it kind of threw my body into shock becuase the inflammation was being halted quickly, and coming off of them lets the inflammation hit suddenly. NO FUN. I dont even like taking tylenol or anything like that and I started having to take hudros to deal with the pain.

Lower platelets

On that next Tuesday I had another appointment with Dr Periman and Valerie ( my hematologists and nurse) only to find out that this emotional roller coaster I had been on becuase of the prednisone hadnt been working. I started out at 50 something thousand and had dropped to 41000. Normal range is between 150-450 thousand. Ok so what now? My hema says well maybe your just going to be a litttle harder to treat. He decides the prednisone is not doing anything for me and I can start coming off of it, so he reduced me to 40 mg a day. O and he casually mentions that they can take my spleen. EXCUSE ME dont I need that? Well turns out you really dont HAVE to have it. When I think of a spleen I think of a frog taste tesing bugs. Your spleen is what starts your immune reaction by "taste testing" your blood for anything abnormal. So basically, my body is marking healthy spleens to be killed and during this taste test, my spleen is killing them and mounting an attack against them. So yes my spleen was doing its job, but they still may want him dead.

Vacation

How can a 4th of July and getting a neice on the 5th of July suck? I dont know but it did. I was an emotional wreck. I cried I dont know how many times and I DO NOT cry. I have to be completely broken to cry and I cried just becuase I wanted to come home. We ended up coming home a day early becuase of me. I felt so bad becuase Cody hadnt got to see his brother in so long, and Mechell had barely gotten out of the hospital, but I just had to come home, I didnt know what was wrong with me.
The picture is from vacation.I had been on prednisone about 3 days and was starting to get the emotions from it.

Chest pain

I have go to into Dr. Weber again because im having chest pains. We think that I may have either pericarditis caused by the prednisone making my tissues thin and blood leaking around my heart, or maybe its in a way heartburn coming up from my thin stomach and esophagus. At this point I really think I may die. I cant handle much more. Im scared of having my spleen out and I cant get comfortable with the rituxan treatment idea. I am told over and over to try it. I will be ok. I dont want to do it. We scheduled an echocardiogram to look at my heart. At midnight this night im still up debating whether im going to do this treatment. Im so scared and I cant figure out why?

It hurts

So on Friday morning I take my first dose of prednisone and we decided to take Cody's planned vacation time and go to Port Neches to visit his brother and his girlfriend that would be having a baby over the 4th of July holiday and I really wanted to be there for that. We scramble around packing and finally get out of here around midnight. Cody drives for awhile and then its my turn. By the time we are almost there my body hurts so bad everywhere to the point I wanted to cry. Even the muscles in my hands hurt so bad I didnt want to move my hands. We finally make it there and all i want to do is go to sleep. Which finally after catching a nap, I feel completely normal.

Its positive

So, 4 days later my hematologists nurse calls to tell me that my ANA is positive and so we know that it is more than likely autoimmune and that it is ITP. They want me to start on 60 mg of prednisone the next day which would be a Friday. I asks what the side effects of a steroid are and they say, " O ya know ya will get your busy work done and you may have trouble sleeping."

...and so it begins.

I was getting ready to go to Amarillo for Haileys eye doctor appt, when Dr. Quiros called and said, "Are you ready for your surgery tomorrow?" I was like yeah maybe my stomach will feel better. Then he says, "Well we are going to have to cancel becuase your bloodwork came back abnormal." Really.. why did you ask me if I was ready for surgery then? And what do you mean abnormal, can them idiots not do anything right? He kept telling me something about platelets and ITP but i couldnt understand him very well. After I got over thinking it was the idiots at the lab all I could think was leakemia and I was scared and overwhelmed. They had scheduled me an appointment with a hematologists (what the crap was that anyway?) at 2 for that day in Amarillo since I would be over there anyways. We get over there and its a blood doctor at Texas Oncology which was scared all by itsself. He tells me its probably not anything MAJOR and that he thinks I have ITP. ITP stands for Immune Thrombo something purpura. Basically it says, my immune system is killing my own platelets and bruising. So we ran abunch of tests ranging from autoimmune test to std's. So im feeling a little relieved.

Pre-op

Yesterday I had done my bloodwork and chest xray for my pre-op and had been called back becuase my bloodwork had clotted before they could run the cbc. So basically I was stuck twice becuase they didnt spin my blood fast enough after I gave it.. jerks.

Hidascan

Dr. Quiros called me and he said he was positive that it needed to come out, but to make SURE SURE he wanted to do a hida-scan to see how well it was functioning. I went and and was set up with an iv, which I almost passed out on, and then dye was injected into me. I laid there for like 30 minutes while a machine scanned over my body to see the dye in my organs. Then they put a hormone that makes your body thinks you have just ate that makes you sicker than crap for about a minute. I kept telling that woman I was going to throw up on her table, she kept telling me I wasnt going to, guess she was right. A few minutes later I felt completely normal, the scan was over, and she took my iv out. She told me she couldnt "officially" tell me anything, but it didnt look like my gallbladder was functioning at all.

Gallbladder

This morning I went to see Dr. Quiros becuase my regular doctor was out of town, and this doctor would be the one doing the surgery anyways. He told me it probably was my gallbladder and sent me for a sonogram. In the sono they said it looked like it was completely unfunctional but I had been chewing gum, so they wanted me to come back. The second sono showed the same thing, which definitely meant taking my gallbladder out.

What is wrong with me?

We will start my story off in May-June. Cody had moved out.. again.. and I had 2 pools for the kids and me and I was tanning alot. (we now know i cant be in the sun, it causes flares. The pic with this blog is from one of the many days we spent in the pooIs) I was beginning to feel nauseating spells from time to time, losing my hair, getting a weird rash on my legs, battling with reoccuring UTI's,  and was so tired that I couldnt make a full day without a nap. With 2 kids, taking a nap in the middle of the day everyday just doesnt work. The best word I can use to describe it is I felt pregnant, even thought I knew, well pretty much knew I wasnt pregnant. Cody moved back in somewhere during all that and my profile picture is of a night we went on our first "date" in awhile and went and watched The Hangover II. My stomach has hurt on and off since I was 14 so I was having a few changes in my stomach troubles and my mom suggested that I go to the doctor to have my gallbladder checked.. And so began my journey with ITP.