Good is a relative term...

IT WAS A GOOD VISIT! However, good IS a relative term. I say that because it's hard to understand the mindset of someone who comes away from a doctor's visit feeling great to hear the words, "You are very ill." Yet, that's how both M & I feel - we feel elated to know that this doctor understands.

I'm going to try and keep this short tonight because I'm exhausted after everything we went through today and I have 2 very full days ahead of me & want to conserve my energy for when I have to write what all we're finding out.

First things first, I have never in my life had a more thorough physical than I did today. They did a "sinus swab" (basically they use a tiny little wire to just barely scrape the sides of your sinuses - sorry if that's gross) and it was very telling. She showed me the thin wire & said, "If you are keeping infection in your sinuses or if we're dealing with infections in the blood we can tell a lot from these swabs. If you don't have infection(s) then this will just make you feel like you want to sneeze, might make your eyes water but then that's it. If you DO have infection(s) then you might feel a slight stinging but it will only be for a second and then it's over."

I had no worries about this because I had sinus surgery 13 years ago and have unfortunately had to have several scopes into my sinuses, so I thought a thin wire would be nothing. I was wrong. She did the left side and it hurt so bad that I started crying. I have passed kidney stones without crying so you can imagine how bad that had to hurt. She immediately apologized for it hurting and said, "Well, you definitely have some stuff going on in there! Let's get the right side over with real quick." When she did the right side it hurt even worse and I immediately started having a nose bleed. My sinuses felt like they were on fire and I was crying like a 5 year old who just had a shot! The funny thing is she came over and said, "I am soooo sorry I had to do that you, please let me just give you a hug!" And I did and I think we both felt better.

My muscle spasms/twitches came out to show themselves and that's always a good thing for the doctor to see but hard for me to handle. By this time we had gone over my lengthy health history and had the physical and we were supposed to go into the doctor's office to talk before getting the lab work done. I needed help to make it to her office and immediately laid out on her couch. I had been feeling faint and the nose bleed and muscle twitches had set off a chain reaction and I was feeling horrible. She took a look at me & said, "We are going to need to get the nurses to come get you and start an IV of fluids if we are going to get ANY blood from you." That was amazing to me because no doctor had ever been able to just LOOK at me & see that I had low blood volume and difficulty giving more than 2-3 vials of blood without my veins clotting and stopping. So I thought, "YEA!", because as you know if you have been reading my posts, IV fluids make me feel so much better! I knew they would help the muscle spasms and definitely help me be able to give them any blood.

Now, let me say that they needed a lot more than just a few vials of blood. In fact, they needed 42 vials of blood. No, that's not a typo - they needed forty-two vials of blood. I now wondered if a bag of fluid would be enough to get that much blood out of my body! In the lab 5 nurses who start IVs daily stood over me looking for just one decent vein to try and hit. After 3 sticks where each try ended in my vein blowing, we hit pay dirt on the 4th stick and got the IV started and the fluids going. The nurses went and told the doctor how hard it was to find a vein and she realized I have clotting problems. I don't just have low blood volume, I also have THICK blood. So, she ordered a blood thinner be added to the fluids so my vein wouldn't shut down and quit giving blood. Longer story than I wanted to type but it took 2 1/2 hours to get those 42 vials of blood from me. Since there was no other viable vein for them to try and take blood from they had to stop the IV draw blood from that site until my blood started to clot and then they would hook the IV back up and push the fluids until they could draw more blood. This was done 3 or 4 times in order to get everything they needed. I went through two bags of fluid and 2 doses of the blood thinner.

BUT I AM SO THANKFUL FOR ALL OF THAT!!! Why? Because it showed first hand that SOMETHING is wrong with my body and that I need some help. In fact, all of your thoughts and prayers were answered by everything that happened today. The doctor thought I had been through too much to try and run the glucose test I was supposed to have so it's been rescheduled for Friday and I was able to leave and get something to eat! Oh, did I say I had to fast from midnight last night? Well, either way I was actually starving by 3:00 and I decided to treat myself! I went off my "no-yeast" diet for the first time in 1 year & 3 months and had a REAL cheeseburger with a BUN!!! It was awesome. So good in fact that I am making Mark get me another now for dinner - haha. I know that this doctor will more than likely have me on a strict diet (organic, gluten free, etc.) and I only have until Friday to eat whatever I want!!! I'm taking full advantage of that!

Tomorrow we will have to be at The University of Kansas at 7:30 a.m. for a brain spect scan where they will inject contrast dye and do a scan of my brain. Then we meet with the doctor again at 2:00 in the afternoon to finish the talk we never really got to have today since my blood work took so much time and effort. Friday we will see the doctor again at 9:00 a.m. and then I will get to go eat as many carbs and sugars as I want until I am full and come back to the lab for the glucose test. I can't wait for that one - carbs and sugars and ice cream, oh my!!!

So now this has been lots longer than I wanted, but I need to ask you to pray specifically for something for tomorrow morning. I have 4 veins that are now shot and no good however, they will have to inject that contrast dye for the brain scan into a vein somewhere! Please pray that they don't have such a difficult time and they are able to find a vein to get the dye in because otherwise they cannot do the scan and it's an important part of what the doctor wants to look at in my case.

Thanks so much for all your thoughts, prayers and love! I am just so exited to have had a GOOD doctor's visit, even if in my world that means hearing how "very ill" I actually am!

The verse I wanted to share tonight is from a different Bible translation than what I normally read. So I will give the one I like and then follow it with the way it is worded in the NIV as well:

"May you be given more and more of God's kindness, peace, and love." Jude 1:2 (TLB)

"Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance." Jude 1:2 (NIV)