Happy Wednesday family & friends!
I hope this post finds you all happy, healthy & staying warm!
I realized it has been a while since I've posted an update on my health, and figured it was time to do just that. I have found that posting about my health here is the easiest way to update all of our family & friends. Also, it allows me to be able to look back on every single thing myself and family endure with my Disease. There are days my disease leaves me feeling truly miserable and I find myself constantly asking "Lord, why me?". As overwhelming as it is most days, for myself, my husband, and for our children, the Lord continues to show me how strong I am, and maybe that's the answer to "why me".
So here we are, standing strong, trying to overcome yet another hurtle in my health.
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The day before we left for Jamaica, I received a call from my Rheumatologist Team at Mayo... If you have been around here long enough or know anything about Crohn's Disease, then you know Arthritis is a side effect of this Auto Immune Disease, and you know I have been suffering with severe arthritis for about 9 years. Well for the past year now, my arthritis has been debilitating... I will have days where I can't even walk it is so bad. So after numerous scans, X-Rays, and MRI's, they found not only severe inflammation all throughout my body & joints, but also I have now developed a condition that is causing severe Bone Deterioration in my spine, hips & pelvis. It is never fun hearing from the top Spine Specialists at Mayo as well as Radiology that "they would have never expected that I was 35 years old, after seeing all of my images...". They all said when they see images like mine they expect to see someone well into their 90's.
I of course was happy to have some answers and to start the road to treatment, and to just honestly feel better. Jamaica couldn't have come at a better time for us. We needed the time together, to process all that lies ahead, and also to just not think about anything for a little bit. As soon as we got home from Jamaica, on to my new weekly treatment I went... Chemo Medication Methotrexate {MTX}. I am currently 3 weeks into those meds and it has honestly been awful. I am so sick for a few days and then as of right now finally start to feel better mid-week {praying it doesn't change for the worse}. My hair is slowly starting to come out in bigger clumps {nothing "too" significant, but definitely something I can tell} and I am PRAYING hard that what I'm dealing with now is the worst of it {it has taken me 3 years to finally get my hair at a decent length from The Last Time My Hair was Falling Out}. The symptoms I have been dealing with are nausea, vomiting, severe headaches, fatigue, brain fog, and I am now getting these skin lesions/sores all over my body. They are so painful and also super annoying. I was told they could be a form of hives so we are monitoring it and doing everything we can to keep the infection rate down on these. On top of all of this I will start Bone Injections. My first one is tomorrow morning and I'm a bit nervous. They told me it will be about an hour and a half procedure that they have to do under X-Ray. They need to make sure the giant needles get all the way through and into my hip bone.
I still find myself feeling incredibly grateful though because as I always say, it could always be WAY worse. I have an amazing support system, and a husband & children who love me fiercely. There are definitely days I wish I could be the mom & wife they deserve, but if having to go through all of this means I get to watch my children grow into the amazing adults I know they will become, then I will fight through all of this, every single day that I have to.
