Medical update before moving on to today's random thoughts.
I talked to my GP and he was pretty alarmed at my elevated prolactin levels. When I gave him the number, his eyebrows jumped and his face did that thing that doctors faces aren't supposed to do. While I tried to poo-poo the whole silly notion of a brain tumor by saying it's probably a holdover from the pregnancy, he's just shaking his head "nope, that's not it". So I tried to poo-poo it another direction by asking if it's related to my PCOS. Nope, not related. His reaction? "Well, these things are generally benign."
Ok, that's NOT the reaction I was looking for here. I was kind of hoping that we could all have a good laugh at my alarmist relatives for sending me running to the doctor to look for a brain tumor. Yeah, he's not laughing.
So I get blood drawn and we send it out to the lab. I call the fertility clinic and cancel my Monday blood draw appointment and kind of let them know that something different has come up that I'm going to have to deal with.
But my blood results came back really early (we were expecting them on the 4th). Now my prolactin levels are BELOW normal. WTF?????
So I call back, reinstate my bloodwork appointment at the fertility clinic and we'll see if this one test is a trend or a fluke. And now my GP and IVF doctors are talking to each other and will be sharing findings with each other.
And I'm back in limbo waiting to find out if I have a brain tumor, if I am good to go on another FET round, or if I should simply just sit here and mope for a while.
So here's the thing I don't get.
I was chatting with the nurse while we were trying to get my blood drawn. My veins have been drained so many times in the last year that they're starting to fight back by hiding and generally being empty so we had a significant amount of chatting time. And this is a very small doctors office, so she is perfectly aware of the IVF, miscarriage, K's stomach cancer scare last month (he's fine), my skin cancer scare a few days earlier (I'm fine) and now this.
So I'm just kind of laughing about how the hits just keep on coming. And she says "Well I think you're just an incredible woman."
Well, thank you, but uh, why exactly? This last year has been just a string of incredibly bad luck. How does it make a person brave, or extraordinary to simply live day after day of bad luck? It's not like I had a choice in the matter. I mean, if I had been given some cosmic choice, like either that person suffers or I can take on their suffering myself, well then ok, then I would get it. But having all of this bad luck inflicted on me isn't a choice, and I'm not sparing anyone else any pain by taking it on myself.
There's nothing virtuous about surviving a ridiculous amount of bad luck.
The choices are deal with it or die. And there's not much choice there since no one has offered an easy way to just die and not deal with this crap.
Is there some reaction here that I could be having that I'm not aware of? Believe me, I'm crying and swearing about the injustice of it all at just about every opportunity I can get. Am I extraordinary in some way because I haven't gone on some sort of public rampage? Honestly, if there's an option out there that's a less brave reaction than I'm having and it would be easier to tolerate than just surviving day after day, I'd be perfectly happy to consider that option. The day to day surviving isn't a whole lot of fun, but I didn't realize there was another option.
I'm not brave, I'm not extraordinary, I'm not even above average in any particular way. All I am is still standing (sometimes) after all of these crappy events have taken place. Show me a less brave option and I'll probably take it.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
The family gathering
The annual family gathering was yesterday and I didn't do so well.
The entire family always gathers at the end of March to celebrate my grandmothers birthday. This year, she is 99. I KNOW! So her birthday party is pretty much a command performance because let's face it, every year it's very likely going to be her last one. And yet she keeps on pluggin! Various functions are failing her like her eyesight and hearing, but she has not lost a single brain cell over the years, and she was pretty well endowed with them to begin with.
Our family is huge. And we all live in the area so when there's an event, there are a lot of us there.
I hate these events. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the people there, everyone is nice, and interesting, and unlike other families, everyone actually gets along. I would choose to hang out with the majority of people at these events, one on one. But I'm shy. I get really overwhelmed when I find myself in a crowd. I don't like parties, I hate the mall, I just get nervous and introverted when faced with more than 3 people.
Since I'm the youngest of my generation, I was always too little to get know my cousins as peers and never really felt like I knew many of them, but since I was the baby, everybody knew me. In one branch of my family, I couldn't figure out which of the female cousins was which until I was a teenager. Once I figured that out, they all started having kids and now I can't tell which kid is which or who that kid belongs to.
And my cousins kids range from ages of 5-just graduated from college. I'm going to get real upset if they start having babies before I do, but I digress.
And this year, it was standing room only. Seriously. We walked in the front door and couldn't even get passed the landing because we were already standing amongst 10 other people and there was simply no place to go where there would be more elbow room.
So I chatted for a moment with those 10 people including an aunt and a couple of cousins. I get embarrassed almost immediately because I incorrectly identify my cousins youngest boy with his older brother. And another cousin starts talking to me about how miscarriage sucks, she went through it twice, and yeah it sucks. Yup, in my family, the news travels throughout the, what, 200 or so family members within a matter of hours. Everybody in that house knows that this is my first public appearance since the miscarriage.
So after that polite interaction, I head back out the front door to cry for a few minutes. I gather myself together and head back into the fray.
A few more cousins, a moment of chat with my dad, I've made it into the living room now. Grandma is stationed in the middle of the room and there are layers of people around her, so getting in there is difficult. I'm faced with a few more cousins and as they say "Hi, how are you?" I'm trying to identify if that's just polite conversation starter, or if it's that "I know life sucks right now so really, how ARE you?" with sad face attached to it. Am I supposed to politely chit chat or am I supposed to give a grieving status update?
And out the front door we go again to cry some more. And while I'm out there crying, a distant cousin, one that's distant enough that I don't think I've ever actually had a conversation with her before, comes to the house with her new baby girl.
This particular cousin gets it. She just had her baby in October and that was her 8th attempt. She's done the IVF roller coaster, she's lost several children, a couple of sets of twins both herself and via a surrogate so when I say she gets it, she GETS it. And we exchange a look that says she kind of feels bad bringing a baby into my sight but there's nothing we can do about it and I hope I was able to give enough of a smile to say that it's ok. But yeah.
So crying jag finally over, and I try to wait it out a little bit because my face is red and puffy and there's just no hiding that I've been crying. So, back into the fray.
I see Grandma and chat with her for a couple of minutes. Yet another cousin tries to give me a hug and I have to ask her not to because if someone touches me, they are going to squeeze the tears right out of me. After a few minutes of chat with Grandma, I consider heading deeper into the house to get a bite to eat. But I glance over and there's an old woman goobering all over the new baby.
I'm supposed to be almost 8 months pregnant with twins at this event. I'm supposed to have old ladies and kids trying to feel my belly for kicks and everybody is supposed to be trying to give me enough wiggle room to not crowd my giant belly. But no. I'm squished among people and the old ladies are goobering all over the other baby.
And that's it for me. A total of about 30 minutes, probably 20 of those minutes spent outside crying. And we head home, me sobbing all the way. Didn't even make it fully into the house.
I called that distant cousin last night. I didn't want her to feel like she brought with her the trigger that sent me running. This camels back was already broken so the straw she brought didn't do a whole lot of damage. We talked for about an hour and a half and I got a lot of good advice and some general comfort that I'm not overreacting about things, this really is as hard as I'm feeling it.
The entire family always gathers at the end of March to celebrate my grandmothers birthday. This year, she is 99. I KNOW! So her birthday party is pretty much a command performance because let's face it, every year it's very likely going to be her last one. And yet she keeps on pluggin! Various functions are failing her like her eyesight and hearing, but she has not lost a single brain cell over the years, and she was pretty well endowed with them to begin with.
Our family is huge. And we all live in the area so when there's an event, there are a lot of us there.
I hate these events. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the people there, everyone is nice, and interesting, and unlike other families, everyone actually gets along. I would choose to hang out with the majority of people at these events, one on one. But I'm shy. I get really overwhelmed when I find myself in a crowd. I don't like parties, I hate the mall, I just get nervous and introverted when faced with more than 3 people.
Since I'm the youngest of my generation, I was always too little to get know my cousins as peers and never really felt like I knew many of them, but since I was the baby, everybody knew me. In one branch of my family, I couldn't figure out which of the female cousins was which until I was a teenager. Once I figured that out, they all started having kids and now I can't tell which kid is which or who that kid belongs to.
And my cousins kids range from ages of 5-just graduated from college. I'm going to get real upset if they start having babies before I do, but I digress.
And this year, it was standing room only. Seriously. We walked in the front door and couldn't even get passed the landing because we were already standing amongst 10 other people and there was simply no place to go where there would be more elbow room.
So I chatted for a moment with those 10 people including an aunt and a couple of cousins. I get embarrassed almost immediately because I incorrectly identify my cousins youngest boy with his older brother. And another cousin starts talking to me about how miscarriage sucks, she went through it twice, and yeah it sucks. Yup, in my family, the news travels throughout the, what, 200 or so family members within a matter of hours. Everybody in that house knows that this is my first public appearance since the miscarriage.
So after that polite interaction, I head back out the front door to cry for a few minutes. I gather myself together and head back into the fray.
A few more cousins, a moment of chat with my dad, I've made it into the living room now. Grandma is stationed in the middle of the room and there are layers of people around her, so getting in there is difficult. I'm faced with a few more cousins and as they say "Hi, how are you?" I'm trying to identify if that's just polite conversation starter, or if it's that "I know life sucks right now so really, how ARE you?" with sad face attached to it. Am I supposed to politely chit chat or am I supposed to give a grieving status update?
And out the front door we go again to cry some more. And while I'm out there crying, a distant cousin, one that's distant enough that I don't think I've ever actually had a conversation with her before, comes to the house with her new baby girl.
This particular cousin gets it. She just had her baby in October and that was her 8th attempt. She's done the IVF roller coaster, she's lost several children, a couple of sets of twins both herself and via a surrogate so when I say she gets it, she GETS it. And we exchange a look that says she kind of feels bad bringing a baby into my sight but there's nothing we can do about it and I hope I was able to give enough of a smile to say that it's ok. But yeah.
So crying jag finally over, and I try to wait it out a little bit because my face is red and puffy and there's just no hiding that I've been crying. So, back into the fray.
I see Grandma and chat with her for a couple of minutes. Yet another cousin tries to give me a hug and I have to ask her not to because if someone touches me, they are going to squeeze the tears right out of me. After a few minutes of chat with Grandma, I consider heading deeper into the house to get a bite to eat. But I glance over and there's an old woman goobering all over the new baby.
I'm supposed to be almost 8 months pregnant with twins at this event. I'm supposed to have old ladies and kids trying to feel my belly for kicks and everybody is supposed to be trying to give me enough wiggle room to not crowd my giant belly. But no. I'm squished among people and the old ladies are goobering all over the other baby.
And that's it for me. A total of about 30 minutes, probably 20 of those minutes spent outside crying. And we head home, me sobbing all the way. Didn't even make it fully into the house.
I called that distant cousin last night. I didn't want her to feel like she brought with her the trigger that sent me running. This camels back was already broken so the straw she brought didn't do a whole lot of damage. We talked for about an hour and a half and I got a lot of good advice and some general comfort that I'm not overreacting about things, this really is as hard as I'm feeling it.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Really? Just, really?
Ok, seriously world, this is the direction we're heading? Oh come on! It's just getting friggin laughable now.
Here's the latest.
Just got a phone call from my aunt. She heard about my elevated prolactin levels and had a concern. You see, my cousin has battled a brain tumor for the last several years. Getting it cut out, having it grow back, messing with his eyesight as is pressed on the optic nerve. Some serious shit. For all I'm going through, my cousin D has really had the worst of medical scary shit in our family.
Guess how they discovered it? Elevated prolactin levels and headaches at the base of the skull.
*headdesk*
Seriously world? You're giving me the same flippen symptoms that lead to the discovery of a brain tumor in my cousin?
I've had pressure pain at the left side of the base of my skull for years. Well before any of this crap started. Nothing severe, just a random kind of sharp ouch between my ear and my neck.
When they finally figured out what was going on with my cousin, his prolactin levels were in the thousands. Mine are still in double digits so nothing nearly as severe as what they found with him. But they also told him that it had been growing probably more than 10 years when they finally found it. And for me, we're assuming that the prolactin is still raised due to the pregnancy. Prolactin is the hormone that tells your body to produce milk, so yes, it's very likely just a hold over from the twin pregnancy, even though it's been over 3 months.
I'm sure this will turn out just like the mole that scabbed over yet turned out to be nothing. Honestly, I'm not scared at the moment. Just a bit incredulous that really? Of all the things I'm dealing with right now, I need to consider the possibility of a fucking brain tumor??? It's like a frakkin soap opera! Seriously, I would be rolling my eyes at the writers who even proposed this next potential storyline!
I'll be getting my prolactin levels checked in a couple of weeks. If it hasn't dropped drastically or if it's increased, I'll be insisting that my doctor send me for an MRI just to double check.
I give up. I just need to laugh at this because it's so flippin ridiculous.
Here's the latest.
Just got a phone call from my aunt. She heard about my elevated prolactin levels and had a concern. You see, my cousin has battled a brain tumor for the last several years. Getting it cut out, having it grow back, messing with his eyesight as is pressed on the optic nerve. Some serious shit. For all I'm going through, my cousin D has really had the worst of medical scary shit in our family.
Guess how they discovered it? Elevated prolactin levels and headaches at the base of the skull.
*headdesk*
Seriously world? You're giving me the same flippen symptoms that lead to the discovery of a brain tumor in my cousin?
I've had pressure pain at the left side of the base of my skull for years. Well before any of this crap started. Nothing severe, just a random kind of sharp ouch between my ear and my neck.
When they finally figured out what was going on with my cousin, his prolactin levels were in the thousands. Mine are still in double digits so nothing nearly as severe as what they found with him. But they also told him that it had been growing probably more than 10 years when they finally found it. And for me, we're assuming that the prolactin is still raised due to the pregnancy. Prolactin is the hormone that tells your body to produce milk, so yes, it's very likely just a hold over from the twin pregnancy, even though it's been over 3 months.
I'm sure this will turn out just like the mole that scabbed over yet turned out to be nothing. Honestly, I'm not scared at the moment. Just a bit incredulous that really? Of all the things I'm dealing with right now, I need to consider the possibility of a fucking brain tumor??? It's like a frakkin soap opera! Seriously, I would be rolling my eyes at the writers who even proposed this next potential storyline!
I'll be getting my prolactin levels checked in a couple of weeks. If it hasn't dropped drastically or if it's increased, I'll be insisting that my doctor send me for an MRI just to double check.
I give up. I just need to laugh at this because it's so flippin ridiculous.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Pandora Fail
Turned on Pandora radio because there's nothing on TV.
First line I hear is Eddy Vedder singing "oh where oh where can my baby be? The lord took her away from me...."
Hit the skip button to be greeted by "Stairway to Heaven".
I've cried enough today so I'm really trying to laugh. It's not really working though.
First line I hear is Eddy Vedder singing "oh where oh where can my baby be? The lord took her away from me...."
Hit the skip button to be greeted by "Stairway to Heaven".
I've cried enough today so I'm really trying to laugh. It's not really working though.
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