Things are looking up for me.

“For you did not receive a spirit that made you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” —Romans 8:15

It has been a great comfort to me to remind myself: God already knows what is wrong with me. He knows what is happening and where it’s headed. I have only to buckle up and trust Him.

First, let me tell ya what a relief it is to have some answers to the heart question.

What do you call your doctor when she’s a physician’s assistant? PA Carlquist? I don’t know what to call her, but she has been a great help to me. She came right in to the appointment and got to the point. She had her computer open and she said, “Well, the good news is we know what it is, but it’s not so good.”

Surprise! Wait. Someone actually is holding a piece to this puzzle. I didn’t even know enough about hearts to be worried. I’m not medical at all. I’m just happy someone does know.

It’s called Ventricular Tachycardia, and I was impressed with the simple way she explained it. She said that it’s like there’s an anarchist down in the lower part of my heart. The upper area is in charge of the rhythm, but occasionally the anarchist rises up and takes over, which is not good. The thing is that he throws off the beat and goes too fast. (Yes, an anarchist absolutely must be a HE. HA!) Then the true leader takes back over.

The problem showed up when I did the overnight heart monitor, at 12:44am, for six beats, so there’s a possibility that it could be caused by my not getting enough oxygen in my sleep. Although, I’m not sure if that explains why it happens sometimes during the day. I’ll have to ask.

They changed my medications, which I am adjusting to this weekend. I am so fatigued!! After three weeks of having my energy back, this is hard.

Let me tell you why I like Cardiology PA Carlquist so much. For starters, I feel comfortable enough with her to tell her what needs to be told. I often freeze up with other doctors. She is good about answering my questions too.

I saw her looking at the toes funny, so I explained, “Oh, yeah, my toes are just purple because I have Raynaud’s syndrome, but it doesn’t bother me too much. It’s always been more of a party trick.”  Ha!

She made a note of the purple toes in her computer. Then she went on to explain that the doctor may want to do a ventricular ablation to turn off the ventricular tachycardia. This is a procedure where they go in through your thigh and run a catheter up to your heart and work on the problem that way. The advantage to this is that I would not need medicine anymore, once it’s done.

So I still needed a follow-up appointment with this doctor. He is difficult to get an appointment with.

“I’ll walk you to the desk and see if I can speed the process up a little,” she said. (See, this lady is AWESOME sauce.)

We walk out, and lo and behold, there’s the doctor that specializes in electrical heart problems, standing right there eating an apple!

My PA sent me back to my exam room. She stood out there and talked to the doc for a good five minutes. Then they both came in. I thought he’d just stick his head in for a minute, but no. He pulled up a patient chair, sat down, and asked me questions.  It was a good visit. Of course, I forgot to tell him about the fevers, but I haven’t had too many of those lately.

He decided that he wants me to have an MRI, which we don’t expect to find anything bad on. He also wants me to wear a loop recorder for a week to get more information on the problem. (Last time I only wore it for 24 hours.) Then he asked me to come to the clinic any time that I have symptoms: palpitations, light-headedness, dizziness, so they can have an EKG recording of when it’s actually happening.

That EKG part will never happen. The heart medicine keeps it under control so well that I do not have heart problems so long as I’m taking it, thankfully!

So there you have it. I may or may not need to have the surgery. We’ll see. More tests…fun, fun, fun.

I need to send my PA a thank you note. She saved me another month of waiting for a doctor appointment by bringing the doctor in on the spot like that. Doesn’t it make you feel good when people go the extra mile?

The doctor was very calm about it all, but he did say, “I don’t want to freak you out or anything,” about something.  I laughed.

They both laughed at me when they saw the writing on my hand. I write reminders to myself on my palms, and people often chuckle about that.

Oh, one more little funny for ya:  The doctor said, with the utmost of seriousness, as he had only just met me, “Now we need to talk about it, if you’re wanting to have children sometime…”

Haaaaaaa!!!!! I didn’t even wait for him to finish.  “Oh, don’t worry about that. I have four children, and we are done now.”

Ha! Can you imagine? No, I’m half kidding. I adore babies, and I love my children more than life itself, but that time of life has passed for me. I’m okay with that.

*************

Ventricular Tachycardia:

–Definition: condition in which lower chambers of heart beat quickly

–Rare, especially under age 60

–Symptoms: light-headedness, palpitations, shortness of breath, chest pain, fainting, cardiac arrest

(Obviously, I have not had cardiac arrest.)

–Causes: heart disease, cardiomyopathy, genetics

(I do not know what the cause of mine is.)

-Risks: Cardiac arrest (where the heart stops beating), heart attack

For more info: Healthline article

**********

My hip problem: Iliotibial Band Syndrome. 

My physical therapist works on this every week. My IT band is so tight, if you touch it I want to cry. I’m supposed to be rolling it at home everyday with a rolling-pin, but oh man, I don’t want to! I have it in both legs, but the right side is way more severe.

–Definition: inflamed illiotibial band–This ligament rubs against the thighbone causing pain. (The IT band runs from the iliac crest down to your shin.)

–Causes: For me, an abnormal pelvic tilt—Either it’s causing the tilt, or the tilt is causing the angry ligaments. I’m not sure.

–Symptoms: tender to the touch, knee swelling, pain with bent knee, pain using stairs, popping sound with extended knee

This thing quiets down sometimes and only hurts if I touch it, or if the kids sit too close to me, touching my leg. Other times, it gets so bad that it’s hard to even walk. I bought a cane in January, but then it improved. Phew! Let’s hope I don’t have another month like this past January ever again.

For more info: MedicineNet article

*******

Is there an overarching problem causing all this mess? Well, I have yet to prove it if there is, so for now, I have this heart problem, with no known cause, IT band syndrome, tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and occasional fevers.

Thankfully, the heart meds help, and being gluten-free has been surprisingly beneficial. I would not have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it first hand, but I have had 100 times more energy ever since I cut gluten from my diet. I am fully functioning again, and it is a wonderful feeling!

I don’t know if the gluten is what made the difference or not. The key is that the mystery fevers are gone, because those drained me. Plus, I’ve adjusted to the new medicine, so it isn’t making me tired anymore.

Thank you so much, all of you, who are following along on my little tale of woe. And most of all, thank you to those who have prayed!! It has made a world of difference.

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;

my hope comes from Him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation;

he is my fortress. I will not be shaken.”      Psalm 62:5-6

For the next part of this story: Click here: The Frienemy Drug

The post Health Update: Ventricular Tachycardia, My Favorite Doctor, and Tendonitis Everywhere appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Pregnancy induced sciatica: a little preview of my future, but I had no idea.

My Chronic Pain Battle: Fake Sciatica, Tendonitis, Bursitis, Muscle Strain, Whatever it is!

The first time I developed “sciatica”, whether it ever actually was sciatica or not, I have no idea…..I was pregnant with my very first baby. “It’ll go away once you have the baby,” they said. It hurt exactly the way it does now: across my lower back, down one side of my rear, down my leg, all the way to my foot.

Horrifying stuff, always at its worst when you’re lying in bed.

I couldn’t wait to go into labor. I knew they were handing out free epidurals (with insurance) there. That’s right. I didn’t see any trophies for delivering babies without an epidural, so I was sure to sign up. I’d give anything to finally not feel my hip.

But the joke was on me. The epidural didn’t work properly. I ended up with dead legs, but my uterus was not so much….I got to experience the pain of natural childbirth after all. Only, my legs were dead, so I couldn’t even move around to cope with it.

16 hours, and a great deal of vomiting and shaking later, and they finally ripped Joshua out of my pelvis with one of those baby vacuums.

The good news is that the ob/gyn folks were right about the pregnancy sciatica. It went away the day I gave birth.

Phew! I approached the next pregnancy, only one year later, with great fear and trepidation. Please don’t let it come back. Please oh please. That sciatica stuff was terrifying.

And it didn’t!

happy, healthy pregnancy

And then wonder of wonders, my epidural WORKED! This baby was stuck in my pelvis too, though. It took me 12 weeks to recover from that one, but still no sciatica. Yay!

Then two years after Caleb was born, out of the clear friggin blue sky, it did come back. Only this time I wasn’t pregnant. It was sudden, and I think it was brought on from this incident where Joshua jumped on my back. However, as I looked back at my records, I noticed that I reported it to the doctor as “gradual onset.” Who knows. My memory isn’t so hot anymore.

I just woke up one day and could not put a lick of weight on my left leg. It just buckled! This was different. With the pregnancy sciatica, it hurt to walk, but at least I could do it. I called my mom, she drove me to my doctor’s office while the boys went to preschool.

I took every shot they offered me, I did a little physical therapy, they ran blood work and an MRI, but no one really knew what was wrong. My chart said “tenosynovitis.”

My physical therapist said that I should not have any more children.

I wasn’t too worried. I was 28. I’d get better. Four months later, it was nothing more than a mild pinch that occasionally came and went. I was eventually able to even walk normally.

Feeling pretty good between babies 2 and 3. I figured the hip thing was a problem of the past, with just a little pinch leftover as a reminder.

I decided to have another baby. I gained a whopping 55 pounds, but still there was no sciatica. I was good.

I’m not sure when exactly, but somewhere between Daniel’s birth and Alan’s return from Afghanistan, the occasional pinch grew. It appeared more often and stayed longer.

Then there was another big event. I’ve noticed people in the chronic pain community call this a “flare up”. I use that phrase with reluctance, as no one has ever, as yet, been able to figure out what exactly is flaring up. Six years later, this now irritates me to no end.

This was around the time of the 3rd flare up. Cute pic, though!

The third major flare up occurred after Alan had just returned from Afghanistan, and the boys and I had just returned to Virginia. But this time my shoulder, back (It felt like my ribcage), and neck decided to join in the fun.

It was like the entire right side of my body and my neck were trying to kill me. And right at that time, my pinky nail went white. Solid white and loose. Was I losing my nail??? Weird!!!! Why?????

I could hardly turn my neck because of the pain between my neck and my shoulder, and worst of all, it hurt to inhale. I had to breathe carefully. Breathe too deeply, and I’d pay for that.

The military clinics were useless. U-s-e-l-e-s-s. The first doctor that I saw handed me a prescription for muscle relaxers, said, “Everyone has back pain,” and sent me on my way.

Thanks.

The second time, because you’ll try even a useless clinic when you can’t inhale all the way, the doctor was a little better. She told me not to take the muscle relaxers, referred me to physical therapy, and took x-rays. She also did this periformis release technique on my rear end, and all of the pain moved a little to the left. That was sort of promising.

She said the neck/ inhaling/ shoulder pain thing was strained muscles.

I tried the physical therapy clinic. They never had any available appointments during the hours that I could get childcare for my two pre-schoolers, so that was a dead end.

I’ll never forget my low point. It was 2012. I put Daniel to bed for a nap, and I put in a movie to keep the kids occupied but safe. There were three little boys at this point, and I laid on my bed, stared at the ceiling, cried, and prayed for help.

Then the doorbell rang.

To be continued……You can’t do this story justice in one post!

Read Part II here.

The post My Chronic Pain Battle: Fake Sciatica, Tendonitis, Muscle Strain, Whatever appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.