An Imperfect Life

Many things have unfolded since my last post - Jordan and I have a beautiful baby boy named Bryson who is now 11 months old (don't grow up so fast, kid!) and the light of our lives, Jordan is continually moving up in the company where he works and has transferred to a new unit in the Guard and is having the best time being able to actually use his degree and interact with people of like-minded interests, we have been sealed together as a family for Time and all Eternity in the Payson, Utah Temple, I have completed my Associates degree in Medical Specialties and am now a Nationally Certified Medical Assistant (NCMA) and working part time at a family clinic, and now I am building my own itWorks! business to further our family's financial and physical freedom and stability.

All of those things are amazing and mean that our lives are pretty dang awesome...my life is pretty dang awesome! Today, though, I am in fairly deep reflection upon my ever-so-imperfect life; I live with Fibromyalgia (which is like a tornado of symptoms that many people don't understand), I live with Depression, I live with Anxiety, I live with PTSD, and most recently diagnosed in clinical terms...I live with Bipolar Disorder (surprise, surprise for those who have put up with my episodes ;p). Every single one of these chronic and life-long illnesses goes entirely against my innate nature, heart, and mind.

I have been working painstakingly and exhaustively towards rectifying my wrong-doings and hopefully salvaging what I am able of the relationships (those that I have left) which I have all but destroyed or, at the very least, tainted. Unfortunately, however, while none of these conditions own me and I am still responsible for myself, they unabashedly lay claim on my life and my actions in avid frequency....and they do not discriminate on circumstance, subject, relationship, or any matter of involvement in my life.

The past few days I have been feeling extremely anxious, on edge, and as though there were an actual weight (like, say, that of an anvil) crushing me - my chest in particular. I am making this my public statement and apology to any and all friends and family whom I have caused confusion or pain of any sort. I would attempt to apologize to each individual through personal communication, but I feel a fear of having that personal communication at this time, so I ask that you bear with me and take this heartfelt letter as enough for now. On a day when I do not feel quite so weak I will gladly communicate with any who wish to express their thoughts, frustrations, or concerns in relation to my words here.

I truly feel sorrow for taking advantage of and taking for granted the pieces of you that you have so graciously shared with me. Thank you for loving me, even if or when you hate (or at the very least, dislike) me.

And now, as all sleep deprived mothers must do whenever the opportunity presents itself, I must go take a nap. As Thomas Dekker says, "Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together", and furthermore in the words of John Steinbeck, "It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." Therefore, I must sleep. :)

Who Took My Glass??

I guess lately I've kind of been more of a "glass half empty" kind of person. Although, I admit that now it seems as though I don't even have a glass to show for it. The past few weeks have been the biggest, most prolonged roller-coaster I think I have ever been on in my life...with no real end in sight. Until recently I have mostly felt sadness filling my every day, almost to the brim, but the past several days I have really been experiencing what it is like to Just Be ANGRY. When I was just experiencing sadness I was of course also feeling pain and fear and confusion...but now that I feel Anger...I also feel lost...and hopeless. I'm usually a very sweet, docile person unless properly provoked. Well this recent "trial" has provoked me quite properly indeed. As of late, I find myself just wanting to SCREAM!!! Or PUNCH something!!! ALL THE TIME!!!

It is very self destructive.

Trying to "count my blessings" only hurts more, because I see them in a far off horizon, yet I am so deeply and seemingly irrevocably aware of the fact that none of that seems to matter, and that far off horizon only holds a mirage. There are some things that I have been struggling with in excess since the "trial" first began, things that I will not divulge to such a large public at this time, perhaps at a later date, but they have been making my life seem like one big black hole with a neon sign above it that just says, "I don't know."

I want my glass back. At least then there is hope.

So Merry Christmas, And Happy New Year...

Christmas was really fun, we went down to Cedar to be with Jordan's family the weekend before (since he only got Christmas Day off) and it was busy yet relaxing, and loads of fun. My parents came to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at our house since the only other part of my fam able to get together for Christmas lives just a few doors down. It was pretty low-key and a neat experience since it was my first Christmas with Jordan, and since it was the first time I ever hosted anything at my own place. Pretty cool indeed. I can see why moms are totally wiped out after the holidays though. :p

Well, HAPPY NEW YEAR! It's kind of odd that it's 2014...I remember when the year 2000 was a crazy thought. Jordan and I got to enjoy New Year's Eve (and Day) just with each other - both of us are sick (mostly him so far) and so are a lot of other people in my family. We enjoyed a night of food, movies, and lots of fun as we welcomed in the unscathed 2014. Today we have just been pretty lazy, sleeping a lot and watching various things on Netflix (and I've been trying to put together a presentation for work...trying being the key word). Really there's not a lot to tell at the moment, but I hope that this year will bring many good tidings to all.

Heavier Things

The week after I got married I had my period just like any normal month...

Not too long after it ended I slowly began exhibiting different symptoms that made me rather curious, and somehow I just knew what was going on.

A while later, I started having dreams. Very interesting, very vivid dreams.

Then came Thanksgiving, and I was showing more and more symptoms...and I missed my period.

That Sunday, December 1st I took a test and it was confirmed. I was pregnant. The surge of emotions ping-ponging all over the place, the fear, the excitement! We were confused, yet overjoyed! The reason I say we were confused is because as far as we had been told by my OB there was a small surgery I would need before I could get pregnant. It was a miracle!

Monday came.

I was just fine, I went to work and was ecstatic to tell my boss in confidentiality so that until I was in the safe zone and told everybody else he would at least know what was going on if I was excessively mood-swingish or not feeling well. All was going just fine and I came home that evening just exhausted, but happy as a clam. Slowly but surely I started to feel worse and worse, and I just knew it was the recent change in the weather that was giving my fibromyalgia a run for it's money. The pain kept getting worse and worse, and I had to go up to bed. After crying and writhing in pain for about two hours, Jordan took me to the ER. Unfortunately they were very placating and had an underlying tone of condescension in how they "treated" me. They kept me in the room for a good two or three hours, took a urine sample and just told me to go home and take Tylenol. So we go home and pass out from exhaustion in hopes that Tuesday will be more kind. Jordan went to work, but I stayed home because I was absolutely wasted from the night before and still being in a numb state of pain. Then comes Wednesday and I went to work like normal, I had a decently normal night...until the pain started to come back full force and I decided to let Jordan sleep and somehow I drove myself to the ER again, just crying and shaking from all the pain. This time they took blood, ran an IV, gave me actual pain killers (still class B, so it was safe for baby), and then they did an ultrasound. They started with an abdominal ultrasound, but after searching and failing to see even the tiniest bit of a pregnancy they decided to go trans-vaginal. Still nothing. They gave me a list of possibilities, none of which they could rule out yet - I was earlier in the pregnancy than I thought (so less than 5 weeks), I had already lost the baby or was in the process, or it was Ectopic (where the baby implants in the Fallopian tube rather than the Uterus). They sent me home with some medication and told me to come back if the pain persists or gets worse. Well, I went to work again on Thursday so as not to miss too many hours for the week. I woke up that morning and as I was getting ready for the day I noticed I was spotting very lightly; this concerned me because I obviously couldn't tell if it was because of the vaginal ultrasound or if I was losing the baby, so I took another home pregnancy test just to calm my brain. For whatever reason I hadn't been bleeding at all during the entire time that I was at work (and I went to the restroom several times), but as soon as I got home I was bleeding again. Little by little the spotting became heavier, but not quite a full flow. It was an extremely stressful night, a lot of really stressful things took place, and the pain just kept getting worse. Jordan rushed me back to the ER and they ran more tests, gave me two shots of Morphine and a dose of Percocet, each about 30 minutes apart, and that finally took the pain down to a manageable level. The doctor gave me the same viable options as my last visit for what could be happening and causing all the pain, and he also acknowledged that it could be a combination of the fibro, the big change in weather, and the pregnancy. They sent me home with some prescriptions, and told me to come back on Saturday the 7th to the outpatient lab to get another HCG test to see what the levels were then since they had previously gone from the 1400's up to the 1600's and then back down to the 1500's between all my "visits" that week. They also instructed me to make an appointment with my OB for Monday the 9th. I worked a little bit on Friday and told my boss what was going on so he would be in the loop. Saturday came and went and going to get the lab work done was an easy ordeal. Then Sunday.

Monday came.

As I woke up and started getting ready for my OB appointment I kept feeling more and more pain and I knew I couldn't drive myself. Thankfully a good Samaritan from our new stake was able to take me to and from my appointment. The nurse took my vitals, and there I was left to sit alone in the room feeling so tired and confused and scared and sad. The doctor came in and started talking to me about what was going on and all the tests that had been taken throughout the week and how they looked in comparison. He told me he was 99% sure that it was an Ectopic pregnancy...and that the only way out is to kill the tissue (terminate the pregnancy) or I will die. As you can imagine, I was definitely crying by this point. He told me we could do another HCG test and Ultrasound if I wanted to for peace of mind, but proceeded to tell me that what he was going to do since I was stable and not bleeding internally according to all the previous testing is that he wound give me an injection that's used for chemo patients and it would just kill the tissue and I would be back to normal after about a week or so. I asked him several questions, and after pausing a brief moment and letting out a heavy sigh, I asked if we could go ahead and run those tests one more time just to make sure we were doing everything we could and so I could have that peace of mind. They decided to do the Ultrasound first, and went trans-vaginal again since that's the only way they'd get the kind of detail that was needed. The technician was very sweet and very good at her job both in attention to detail and making it less of an awkward thing for the patient. She found the Ectopic pregnancy in my right Fallopian tube, then she found an ovarian cyst...and then she found internal bleeding. She called the doctor in to take a look, and I reminded him that I had been bleeding in increase since the day before, and he looked at me and said "Yeah...this isn't uterine bleeding which is what you experience on a period, miscarriage, after a birth, etc....this is internal bleeding that is far from normal. Plans have changed...we are getting you into emergency surgery as soon as possible today." and he proceeded to tell me all about the surgery and how it would go/what they would do. I was of course, crying again. The doctor left, I got dressed and the nurse took me to the desk where they told me to be expecting a call from the hospital for when to come in for the surgery, and they set up my post-op appointment. I had been in communication with Jordan this entire time from start to finish, and since my phone was about to lose power I had the Dr's office give the hospital his number as well. I was home and sitting on the couch for all of five minutes when Jordan walked in and said "The hospital just called, they want you there NOW!" We grabbed our phone chargers and bolted. I texted my boss who then called me to get the full scoop and was so sorry and concerned for me and extended help to both me and Jordan if we needed it. Here's a funny thing about all this - never mind the fact that I'm about to have surgery because I was in death's neighborhood and coming up to it's walkway, I was more upset that I hadn't had any food or liquid all day long and had to wait to eat even longer until after the surgery. :p Both me and Jordan had our phones going off like crazy with calls and texts. We got to the hospital and within about 45 minutes I was all prepped and off to surgery. It was such a blessing though that I was able to have each particular staff member that I had in charge of me. And I was able to get a priesthood blessing just minutes before the surgery as well, so that really helped me and I'm sure it helped Jordan as well. Anyway, the road to recovery has been very exhausting. Physically I was out of commission for a solid week, and even still I have my moments when I just can't do anything but sit or lay down for a while. Tomorrow, the 27th is actually my post-op appointment...so hopefully they will tell me things are healing great. Emotionally, I am still very much on the mend. It's one thing to know that there was something in a part of your body that could have killed you...but it's another thing to know that they had to not only remove that "thing", but also remove the tube (yes, I am now only firing on one cylinder), as well as an ovarian cyst and some endometriosis being removed. There is a certain emotional pain that has come from knowing that. But the most difficult pain of all...is that the "thing" that was removed from the tube was not just some random mass, it wasn't just some random clump of tissue or stone...it was a baby. A six week old in development human being. At six weeks, that baby...my baby...was already developing vital organs and the heart was forming and dividing into chambers and pumping blood. The doctor took "before and after" pictures of the surgery for me to keep so I could see what all they did...and most of the pictures were pretty awesome since I've always loved medicine and am halfway through my studies to be an MA. But there were two pictures that got me crying on impact of first sight. They stick to the term "pregnancy" because it's a lot less harsh sounding when they say "this is where we removed the pregnancy" than if they were to replace it with the word "baby"...and I get that, I understand why they stick to using that word, but it just made me cringe every single time that my baby was simply called "a pregnancy" as if to make it sound like a tumor or inanimate object. In those two particular pictures...it was so unmistakable...the kidney bean sized mermaid shaped baby was already showing where the head, body, and limbs were forming, and on the head was a raised looking speck for an eye...every inch of this tiny little miracle was so discernible at just 6 weeks. Again, I go back to never mind the fact that I had emergency surgery to save my life...I was never once concerned about myself over my baby. That entire day until I was wheeled away to be put under, I asked the doctor several times (fully knowing that the answer was never going to change) if there was any chance at all to save the baby...and of course, as sweetly as he could, he would tell me again that there has never been a successful ectopic pregnancy and never in the history of medicine have they been able to save the baby, they have never done a transplant from tube to uterus. He told me I was very lucky that they caught it when they did and that women die at home from ectopic pregnancies all the time. He said if we hadn't caught it when we did, he hated to think about where I would have been in a couple more days. Of course he didn't tell me this all at once, he gave me this news in bits and pieces so as not to overwhelm me more than I already was.

I know this is a lot to read...for those of you who made it past the first few lines. I have been wanting to write about this for several days, but I have just been so busy with the holidays and trying to ease back into normal life that I haven't had the time or energy. I wouldn't wish this kind of experience upon my worst enemy. The pain you feel is so much deeper than any broken arm, black eye, terrible breakup, etc., it is so much worse...so much harder to explain...and so much harder to come back from. The thing that amazes me is how quickly and deeply the connection between mother and child becomes so binding and sacred. I mean that in the fullest. It is something that can only be best understood by experience, not explanation. I have been grieving and going through a mourning process, and with no end in sight. Though I know it is still extremely soon to even try to "bounce back", which that term is entirely inapplicable to this situation, I am still so frustrated with the fact that I hurt so much on a constant daily basis and there is nothing to soothe it for more than a few moments when I become distracted...but even then it doesn't always give me a breather. I know that my Heavenly Father has a plan for me, and I know that He knows what He's doing...but sometimes, it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't make a difference. I still hurt. I still ache. I still feel alone. I still feel scared. I still feel sad. I still feel betrayed. I still feel confused. I still cry. I have never done so much crying in my life. This was and is, by far, the hardest thing I have ever done (and I've done a lot of really painstakingly hard things in my life). I do pretty well now in that I only cry or want to cry about three times a day, rather than all the time throughout the day. At least I have a break in that sense. I would just love to feel and be normal again. I would just love to be able to be close to my husband and allow him to be close to me. I just am stuck wondering if there is something more that could have been done. Something. Nothing. And I hate that.

Here's What You've Missed...

The last several months have been so crazy-busy and full of many fun things, but also many difficult trials. Though, I have grown in various ways from each experience. I'll break it down for you as best as I can. In the first part of August, my 86 year old (biological) father had a mini stroke; he has had 4 mini strokes and has fallen 7 times in the past 2 years. I love both of my parents so very much, even though I haven't always been the best at showing or telling of that fact. It saddens me to the core whenever I think about them being in pain of any type or declining in health. In the middle of August my little chihuahua injured her neck somehow and got a huge gash in it that required a lot of stitches and a lot of healing time and TLC, so she stayed with my mom who could give here that love and protection during that time...but after about two months she was fully healed with all her fur grown back over the wound site and got to come home with me. So that's August, leading into September.
Now September to October... I am no longer unemployed, I have a fabulous job (since the first week of September) as an executive assistant to one of the Partners, and head of purchasing and receiving for a really great company in Orem called Equinox IT Services. I really am so blessed in so many ways to have this job, and I absolutely love every single person in that company. It can be hard to know how to interact with some of them at times (because I can be pretty skittish), but that just comes with the territory of meeting so many new people and learning their style and hoping to gain their approval. I hope to be with this company for many years. :) Towards the end of September, after many many prayers and tears, I made the decision to marry my best friend and love of my life, but as soon as we possibly could in order to insure that my dad would be able to walk me down the aisle. It was one of the toughest decisions of my life. I knew I wanted to marry Jordan, I knew I was going to be with him forever since early on in our dating each other...and it just kept getting stronger as time went on. We were both so excited and had been talking about marriage for quite some time. We had the goal for a temple marriage, but with my dad's health the way it was and my fear of losing him brought me to sincere thought and prayer and I told Jordan I wanted to get married as soon as we could possibly throw it together. He had no problem with this. Hahaha. So there we were...we had 30 days to pull it all together while we were both getting used to our new jobs and trying to find housing and do all that lovely stuff that people have to do when they decide to get married and make that next big step in life. I'll write a post about the engagement story some other time. ;) Alrighty, so October flew by and before I knew it I was standing across from Jordan on Saturday October 19th getting ready to say the biggest "I DO!" that I could ever say in my entire life...! I was so happy, nervous, excited, anxious, overjoyed, bewildered, and so much more! I'll also have to blog about that at another time, but man was it absolutely lovely and just so perfect. ;) October came and went and welcomed in November, and it was very fun yet stressful trying to get settled while Jordan was gone so much for Army duties and a business trip for work. I felt so alone...so confused (psychologically it was really hard to be newly married and see my husband coming and going all the time for extended periods of time). But thankfully those feelings were short-lived. Then came THANKSGIVING! It was so much fun!! My entire family was able to all get together at my parent's house, and we had tons of food and tons of fun! Goodness I love the holidays...! Stay tuned for the next blog entry...it requires special attention....

Concussion Update And Other Things

When I wrote my last post, I was house/pet sitting for a full week at a friend's house while they were in Lake Powell. It was really fun because I was able to be in a house that's much bigger and smells much better than my tiny apartment. I brought my dogs with me and they got along just fine with the two dogs at the house, so that was really good to find out because I might possibly be moving in with this family in a few months. I made one major mistake while I was alone in that house - I watched a murder mystery show on netflix...bad idea for someone who has an over active imagination and just got a concussion not too long ago which messed with my mind in a totally different way. :p Anyway, I had my follow-up at the concussion clinic on the 29th and they evaluated all my daily symptom tracking sheets that I had been filling out since my first visit. The follow-up went well and they cleared me for being able to drive again - yay freedom! They were pleased that my symptoms were decreasing in severity as my activity levels were going up, but I was still only at about 50%. They wanted me to make another follow-up and in the meantime bring my daily activity levels up to 100%. Well I'll tell you how that has been going for me - not well, not well at all. I have continuously forgot to call and make the follow-up, and I have been in such a rut the past week that my activity levels were like maybe 20%. I'll be honest, I have been having a really hard time with being unemployed AND having to drop school for a while AND living in such a stressful situation AND trying to keep my relationship with Jordan happy and healthy AND just so many other things. I feel much better than I have and I feel like even though things are rough and will probably still be pretty rough for quite some time that I will be just fine. Another extremely sad and annoying thing that I am having to face is the fact that my mental capacity is extremely different. I get severely upset at everyone and everything including myself whenever I have moments or days that I just cannot think, cannot organize my thoughts, cannot concentrate, and I know that I am just not how I used to be...something is very different...and it hurts me very deeply. I am also still having problems with dizziness and balance, but I suppose those aren't quite as hard to get used to since I've kind of always struggled in that area. Add all of that on top of the health challenges I already face on a never-ending basis, and I am just exhausted in almost every capacity. One thing that gives me comfort at least is that I know that I have so much love and compassion from friends and family as well as my Heavenly Father. The hard thing about knowing that you're actually really blessed and have a really good life is also knowing that you have a lot of hard things to deal with and it just plain hurts. The two don't exactly directly correlate and neither one (trials vs. blessings) negates the other. At any rate, I am trying my best to take each day in stride and just let the Lord help me where He knows I need the help. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful, loving, persevering boyfriend to go through all of life's challenges with me. So right now I'm looking for work (still) and would greatly appreciate any kind of work as long as it's not a phone job - that raises my anxiety levels and increases some of my other symptoms of health issues more than anything else. Here's to hitting rock bottom and hoping that the turnaround for the surface follows shortly after. :p

Four, Six, Nine

The past couple weeks have been full of so much adventure and surprise, mostly of good nature. The 4th was really fun.... Jordan and I went to the Freedom Festival parade and we had lunch at Burger Supreme, but it was so packed we ended up just eating outside on the grass, it was actually really fun. After lunch we decided to go take a nap under a tree at a park - what a wonderful refresher, I love doing stuff like that! There was this adorable old couple at a nearby tree of their own, it was so cute to see that the even in their old years with the wife in a wheelchair and the husband probably not far behind that they were still enjoying the simplicity and beauty of life. After our nap we went to the dollar theater and saw The Croods (very fun/funny!), then we headed to my brother's house for a bbq and fireworks. After the kids went to bed we watched Independence Day...which I mostly slept through except to wake up long enough to eat the delicious "Blondies" that my sis in law made. Yum yum!

Saturday the 6th was me and Jordan's Six-monthiversary! I got to his place early afternoon and then we went up to the City Creek Mall and had a blast! The first place we went to was Tiffany, and it was so fun just looking at everything and imagining all sorts of things and talking about what it would be like to have that kind of money. Haha after we woke up from our daydreaming we kept walking around and then found ourselves having all sorts of conversation over some delicious philly cheese-steaks in the food court. You'd think feeding our faces would fill our appetites, but we ended up in the Yankee Candle store smelling all sorts of yummy candles and traveling all over the place in our minds with each scent tingling our senses. We continued to walk around and played in a toy store for a while, then we went to Godiva and bought some truffles for later and a Dark Chocolate Raspberry Decadence shake to share in the courtyard. It was euphorically delectable and could be severely dangerous for my wallet if I lived close to a Godiva store. :p We had so much fun talking and enjoying our lives together. We moved location to a bench by the street and talked and people-watched as we witnessed a storm rolling in. Once it started to sprinkle we walked over to the Beehive House and were able to take a tour; it was so amazing to see and hear all of the cool things about that house. Then, we walked next door to the Lion House and had a really delicious dinner while we talked about how white we are, haha you can ask me more about it if you want a good laugh. Anyway, then we went home to his place and I helped him with some job applications while he did the day's insanity workout and showered, then we watched Mulan and ate the Godiva Truffles and enjoyed the last bit of our day together. The hardest part about dating Jordan is that we live so far apart from each other, i.e. we aren't married yet, haha so annoying for us both. Anyway, Sunday the 7th he came down to go to church with me and then later that evening we went to a birthday dessert party for my sister in law's cousin's wife, lol, so for all intents and purposes we'll just refer to her as my cousin from now on. :p

Moving on, my fibro had been kicking my butt and on Tuesday the 9th I was fortunate enough to get a full-body hour long massage from a massage therapist in my ward. I walked in there feeling like less than crap and walked out of there feeling like a million bucks. I'm so grateful for massage therapists and how much their knowledge and ability helps me and others. I spent the rest of the day trying to relax and enjoy not being in so much pain...this was working for a few hours, until about 7:20 when a couple gals from my ward came to drop off a ward party invite and see how I was doing. This is where it gets interesting...but first a little background, my apartment is extremely small and my living room wall has a table that folds out/up and is placed at the stupidest height ever, but I can leave a shorter folding chair under it to put my laptop on when I workout so it's easier to see the screen when I'm doing floor work. ANYWHO...so these gals come over, I'm rushing around to clear off the couch for them to have a seat and then pull the folding chair out from under the table for myself, but I didn't pull it out far enough and when I sat down and rocked back WHAM! I smacked the back of my head/neck right into the table! It hurt like a mother, and even though I was instantly seeing stars and didn't know what to do...what did I do?...I played it off like I was fine and talked with the gals for a few minutes and then they were gone. As soon as they left I took a bunch of pain killers and tried not to think about the increasing and spreading pain. Jordan came over and was such a sweetheart to help take care of me and make sure someone from my ward could come help give me a blessing. Finally around 4:30 AM he took me to the ER and I they did some CT Scans. No fractures or internal bleeding, but a definite concussion. Those first like 10 hours since the injury were excruciating (poor Jordan, I don't think he knew what to do). The next day I couldn't see straight at all for the entire day (I was hoping my eyes wouldn't permanently be like that) and I could only stand up and walk around my apartment long enough to go to the bathroom or grab something easy to make and eat. Anyway, over the next few days I saw great but gradual improvement, so that was comforting at least.