PhatMama
02-25-08, 01:54 PM
I'll start..
As I said in another thread, I was brought here by my future hubby ISDAman in 2001. I was SweetM back then for anyone who remembers.
We had started talking in late May of 2001, right after he lost his mother and I had major surgery to remove 2 ovarian tumors and my left ovary.
K was what I had been looking for in a husband, from his strong faith and good work ethic to his genuine interest in becoming a father to my 6 year old daughter from a previous (but disastrous) relationship.
We married in 2002 and immediately started trying for another child as I had been told in 2001 to expect to need a total hysterectomy within the next 5 years.
I got pregnant right away but lost the baby before the first ultrasound. ILJ was there for me then in a big way.
A year went by with various financial struggles and adjustments. We started homeschooling that year. My health, as always, was an issue. And every month there was disappointment, stress and tears on my part when I wasn't pregnant.
I went on Clomid in spring of 2003 and got pregnant fairly quickly. It was an exciting and emotionally harrowing 6 months with ultrasounds, emergency appointments, specialists and bedrest.
In September of 2003, we lost our little Elijah due to a cord accident. It was absolutely devastating for all of us and I never would have made it without the support of ILJ-ers. Especially those on the women's board, especially especially Teresa. I don't know if you are on these boards anymore Teresa, but I will never forget how you were there for me. And those books you sent me went on to help another couple in devastation after they helped us.
By late June 2004, I felt I had healed enough to try again. I made an appointment with my ob for September to try again with the Clomid. I then resolved to get as healthy as I could in the meantime with diet , exercise and vitamins.
I never asked about the Clomid though, as I found out I was pregnant in August!
The pregnancy was packed with stress, financial and otherwise. There were always appointments and scares. I was on bedrest for a lot of it, didn't get remission from my rheumatoid and developed sciatica.
The worst of it though were the dark thoughts that plagued me throughout. Every happy milestone that passed in the pregnancy and all the preparations were overshadowed by intrusive thoughts that something was going to happen. I was a failure, broken and unable to give my husband the son he'd always wanted. Even all the baby stuff brought bad feelings of "you'll never need these things cause you can't have a baby."
But we got through and in March of 2005, our precious Samuel was born during a blinding snowstorm. We named him him Samuel, for the same reasons that Hannah in the Bible named her little guy Samuel.
Late May of 2005, we went to the mall as a family. In the mall restroom, I noticed several dark bruises on my legs that I could not remember a reason for. I was worried but figured there was a (non-scary) reason for it. I mentioned it to K on the way home and noticed as I was gesturing to him that I had these pinprick sized bruises all over my fingertips as well. And when I tweezed my face, it bled, and when I brushed my teeth, I bled. A lot.
K and I did what we always do when I come up with new symptoms. We go to the 'net. Doing that brought up a bunch of scary stuff like leukemia and obscure stuff too. We went to the doc the next day actually hoping that I had scurvy! :rolleyes:
It turned out what I had was idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. ITP.
Basically, this is a medical way of saying, "We don't know why but your spleen, which normally protects your body from harm, has decided instead to destroy perfectly good and incredibly important blood platelets instead, leaving you with no ability clot your blood. Thus resulting in terrible bruising and leaving you in mortal danger of bleeding to death at any moment."
It was a terrible summer. With many moments of heaven as well. I was able to witness in a way that I never did before. There's really very little to worry about saying wrong when you are in the hospital hooked up to chemo, and people tend to listen a little harder too. I also surrendered to God that summer in a way that I never would have considered before.
But we were scared. I was afraid my son wouldn't know me. I wept for the moments I waited so long for and now couldn't have. I found out more about just how badly the rheumatoid had progressed in my body then I wanted to know.
My uncle died. It wasn't unexpected, and he was suffering toward the end.
I still vividly remember walking into my favorite Christian bookstore, with my walker and my braces on my arms and covered in purple-black bruises to choose bulletins. I had to hastily tell the clerk, who was not used to seeing me like that, "It's complicated, not as terrible as it looks, and today is SO not about me." She thought I had been in a bad car wreck by looking at me, and while I did assure her that was not the case, the actual case was too complicated!
We went directly from the funeral to the emergency room. It was a dark day.
Finally, in July of 2005, after trying all other ideas, I had a splenectomy and the problem was solved. I still see my hematologist and have other issues to be careful of without a spleen, but I am still here with my family.
2006 was fairly uneventful by comparison. K lost his uncle. It was not unexpected, either, as he was quite ill, but of course hard on the family. Especially his Grandma, who has had 5 children and outlived 4 of them.
We moved to a 3 bedroom which I love, with a landlord that is a test of faith. We had to get minimum housing involved, go to court, and now, in 2008, that he's foreclosed on, we have to fight the bank for displacement compensation so we can have the $$ to move.
2007 was a difficult year.
Early in the year, K's grandma on his dad's side died. Not unexpected but difficult for the family nonetheless.
I spent much of '07 feeling powerless to be there for family like I wanted to be. My sister, E, at 16 years old, purposefully overdosed on Klonopin. Thank God they got to the hospital in time.
My brother, J, at 20, had really begun a downward spiral. He had been struggling with an undiagnosed neurological disorder since the age of 16 which caused chronic migraines, seizures, weakness on the left side of his body.
He coped with this overheavy burden in various ways. Good ways, like his cartooning and writing, and not so good ways like abusing his pain meds and alcohol.
All throughout his last year on earth we only had handful of good conversations, most of them were tense, as I would try to make him see that being self destructive was NOT going to solve his problem.
In the face of his unimaginable pain and disability, the methods that I have found over the years to cope with my own illness seemed somehow small and ineffective when I would try to convey them to him. We had many conversations where he would call asking to "bum" pain meds till his refill, in which I would have to carefully say, "I'm sorry, I only have just enough to last me." He would hang up and I would usually cry feeling like I'd failed him somehow.
October 30, 2007. It was free taco day and we were actually still in the parking lot of Taco Bell, when my mom called my cell phone saying that she had had to call the ambulance for J as she got home and could not wake him up. He was breathing but apparently not conscious. I told her we'd be there ASAP.
We finished dinner driving back across town to stop by the house and pick up the mail and the diaper bag. In front of our house, less than 25 minutes from the first call, my mom called back to say he was gone.
All we know now, 4 months later, is that the cause of his death was pulmonary edema, and that he did not have enough drugs in his system at time of death for that to have caused it.
So we are still dealing with this. For me, I deal with my own grief in the bursts that it comes while clumsily doing my best to be there for T, (J was more like an older brother than an uncle to her) E (who had literally never known life without J right there for her) and my parents.
In November of '07, it became apparent that we could not continue attending the church where we were. :argue: The pastor, I have not figured out the real reason why, kept picking arguments with K during deacons meetings. Finally, after he said that K was following the devil, :excuse: not God, we had to resign our membership. This left me feeling betrayed and lonely, during what was already one of the most dark times of my life. All of the ladies I was so supposedly close to have acted like our family fell off the face of the earth.
So now, it is 2008. We are struggling financially, but getting by on what we make from e-bay and amazon as we are doing the painfully slow process of applying for voc rehab for K. (Where the VA will pay for him to go to college, so he can make money doing something other than sales, which has proved in recent years to be too draining mentally and spiritually and too unstable financially with all the highs and lows of commissions).
And as I said, we are fighting for displacement compensation for our apartment.
But still our God is good! K and I have been together 6 years, S will be 3 in March and T will be 13 in July. He sustains us through it all, and His grace is truly sufficient. :ghug:
As I said in another thread, I was brought here by my future hubby ISDAman in 2001. I was SweetM back then for anyone who remembers.
We had started talking in late May of 2001, right after he lost his mother and I had major surgery to remove 2 ovarian tumors and my left ovary.
K was what I had been looking for in a husband, from his strong faith and good work ethic to his genuine interest in becoming a father to my 6 year old daughter from a previous (but disastrous) relationship.
We married in 2002 and immediately started trying for another child as I had been told in 2001 to expect to need a total hysterectomy within the next 5 years.
I got pregnant right away but lost the baby before the first ultrasound. ILJ was there for me then in a big way.
A year went by with various financial struggles and adjustments. We started homeschooling that year. My health, as always, was an issue. And every month there was disappointment, stress and tears on my part when I wasn't pregnant.
I went on Clomid in spring of 2003 and got pregnant fairly quickly. It was an exciting and emotionally harrowing 6 months with ultrasounds, emergency appointments, specialists and bedrest.
In September of 2003, we lost our little Elijah due to a cord accident. It was absolutely devastating for all of us and I never would have made it without the support of ILJ-ers. Especially those on the women's board, especially especially Teresa. I don't know if you are on these boards anymore Teresa, but I will never forget how you were there for me. And those books you sent me went on to help another couple in devastation after they helped us.
By late June 2004, I felt I had healed enough to try again. I made an appointment with my ob for September to try again with the Clomid. I then resolved to get as healthy as I could in the meantime with diet , exercise and vitamins.
I never asked about the Clomid though, as I found out I was pregnant in August!
The pregnancy was packed with stress, financial and otherwise. There were always appointments and scares. I was on bedrest for a lot of it, didn't get remission from my rheumatoid and developed sciatica.
The worst of it though were the dark thoughts that plagued me throughout. Every happy milestone that passed in the pregnancy and all the preparations were overshadowed by intrusive thoughts that something was going to happen. I was a failure, broken and unable to give my husband the son he'd always wanted. Even all the baby stuff brought bad feelings of "you'll never need these things cause you can't have a baby."
But we got through and in March of 2005, our precious Samuel was born during a blinding snowstorm. We named him him Samuel, for the same reasons that Hannah in the Bible named her little guy Samuel.
Late May of 2005, we went to the mall as a family. In the mall restroom, I noticed several dark bruises on my legs that I could not remember a reason for. I was worried but figured there was a (non-scary) reason for it. I mentioned it to K on the way home and noticed as I was gesturing to him that I had these pinprick sized bruises all over my fingertips as well. And when I tweezed my face, it bled, and when I brushed my teeth, I bled. A lot.
K and I did what we always do when I come up with new symptoms. We go to the 'net. Doing that brought up a bunch of scary stuff like leukemia and obscure stuff too. We went to the doc the next day actually hoping that I had scurvy! :rolleyes:
It turned out what I had was idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. ITP.
Basically, this is a medical way of saying, "We don't know why but your spleen, which normally protects your body from harm, has decided instead to destroy perfectly good and incredibly important blood platelets instead, leaving you with no ability clot your blood. Thus resulting in terrible bruising and leaving you in mortal danger of bleeding to death at any moment."
It was a terrible summer. With many moments of heaven as well. I was able to witness in a way that I never did before. There's really very little to worry about saying wrong when you are in the hospital hooked up to chemo, and people tend to listen a little harder too. I also surrendered to God that summer in a way that I never would have considered before.
But we were scared. I was afraid my son wouldn't know me. I wept for the moments I waited so long for and now couldn't have. I found out more about just how badly the rheumatoid had progressed in my body then I wanted to know.
My uncle died. It wasn't unexpected, and he was suffering toward the end.
I still vividly remember walking into my favorite Christian bookstore, with my walker and my braces on my arms and covered in purple-black bruises to choose bulletins. I had to hastily tell the clerk, who was not used to seeing me like that, "It's complicated, not as terrible as it looks, and today is SO not about me." She thought I had been in a bad car wreck by looking at me, and while I did assure her that was not the case, the actual case was too complicated!
We went directly from the funeral to the emergency room. It was a dark day.
Finally, in July of 2005, after trying all other ideas, I had a splenectomy and the problem was solved. I still see my hematologist and have other issues to be careful of without a spleen, but I am still here with my family.
2006 was fairly uneventful by comparison. K lost his uncle. It was not unexpected, either, as he was quite ill, but of course hard on the family. Especially his Grandma, who has had 5 children and outlived 4 of them.
We moved to a 3 bedroom which I love, with a landlord that is a test of faith. We had to get minimum housing involved, go to court, and now, in 2008, that he's foreclosed on, we have to fight the bank for displacement compensation so we can have the $$ to move.
2007 was a difficult year.
Early in the year, K's grandma on his dad's side died. Not unexpected but difficult for the family nonetheless.
I spent much of '07 feeling powerless to be there for family like I wanted to be. My sister, E, at 16 years old, purposefully overdosed on Klonopin. Thank God they got to the hospital in time.
My brother, J, at 20, had really begun a downward spiral. He had been struggling with an undiagnosed neurological disorder since the age of 16 which caused chronic migraines, seizures, weakness on the left side of his body.
He coped with this overheavy burden in various ways. Good ways, like his cartooning and writing, and not so good ways like abusing his pain meds and alcohol.
All throughout his last year on earth we only had handful of good conversations, most of them were tense, as I would try to make him see that being self destructive was NOT going to solve his problem.
In the face of his unimaginable pain and disability, the methods that I have found over the years to cope with my own illness seemed somehow small and ineffective when I would try to convey them to him. We had many conversations where he would call asking to "bum" pain meds till his refill, in which I would have to carefully say, "I'm sorry, I only have just enough to last me." He would hang up and I would usually cry feeling like I'd failed him somehow.
October 30, 2007. It was free taco day and we were actually still in the parking lot of Taco Bell, when my mom called my cell phone saying that she had had to call the ambulance for J as she got home and could not wake him up. He was breathing but apparently not conscious. I told her we'd be there ASAP.
We finished dinner driving back across town to stop by the house and pick up the mail and the diaper bag. In front of our house, less than 25 minutes from the first call, my mom called back to say he was gone.
All we know now, 4 months later, is that the cause of his death was pulmonary edema, and that he did not have enough drugs in his system at time of death for that to have caused it.
So we are still dealing with this. For me, I deal with my own grief in the bursts that it comes while clumsily doing my best to be there for T, (J was more like an older brother than an uncle to her) E (who had literally never known life without J right there for her) and my parents.
In November of '07, it became apparent that we could not continue attending the church where we were. :argue: The pastor, I have not figured out the real reason why, kept picking arguments with K during deacons meetings. Finally, after he said that K was following the devil, :excuse: not God, we had to resign our membership. This left me feeling betrayed and lonely, during what was already one of the most dark times of my life. All of the ladies I was so supposedly close to have acted like our family fell off the face of the earth.
So now, it is 2008. We are struggling financially, but getting by on what we make from e-bay and amazon as we are doing the painfully slow process of applying for voc rehab for K. (Where the VA will pay for him to go to college, so he can make money doing something other than sales, which has proved in recent years to be too draining mentally and spiritually and too unstable financially with all the highs and lows of commissions).
And as I said, we are fighting for displacement compensation for our apartment.
But still our God is good! K and I have been together 6 years, S will be 3 in March and T will be 13 in July. He sustains us through it all, and His grace is truly sufficient. :ghug: