My P.U.S.H Story Part 2

I want to begin by saying that if you read the blog post, My P.U.S.H. Story Part 1, I pray you’ve been P.U.S.H.ing your way through since the last time we met. If you’d like to share your positive results or comments, please do so below! But, remember, P.U.S.H.ing may take some time. It takes us time to find ourselves in colossal messes, and sometimes it takes time and consistency to get out of them.

If you are just joining us, below is the continuation of my P.U.S.H. story in a timeline format. Please go back to blog post #1 (A P.U.S.H.ed Woman) if you’d like to understand what P.U.S.H.ing is really all about, and catch up on why I believe P.U.S.H.ing is the only way to truly survive and thrive. Then come back to us! If you’ve been here before, this continuation of my timeline is the doozy I was telling you about. ☺

September 2014- February 2015 – Although unbelievably relaxing, acupuncture treatment does not help me. I finally end acupuncture treatments because I believe it was the cause of the imbalance anyway. No one could ever confirm that until years later. (Oh yeah, I suffered from imbalance and extreme fatigue for years until God sent a miracle. We’ll discuss that later.) The fibroids are growing larger and causing more quality of life problems. I am often fatigued and have to schedule most of my life’s activities around my period. I schedule yet another fibroid removal surgery (myomectomy) for March 2015. Because of my fatigue, my husband doesn’t understand nor care for my housekeeping methods, and it becomes a point of contention between us. Seriously, I would sweep the floor and create a pile of trash on one side of the room with the intention of coming back later to use the dustpan to sweep it up. I had exerted all of my energy just sweeping the floor. This has been going on for at least a year.

March 2015- The fibroid surgery takes place, and I lose too much blood. I have to have a blood transfusion. Around 19 fibroids were removed, and I was released from the hospital after three days.

A couple of days later- I am readmitted for another bowel blockage for 2-3 additional days. (Note: I told the doctor about my past repeat hospital emergency room experiences after hospitalization, and that I needed a good gastro plan upon discharge, but I guess it was to no avail.)

May 2015- My husband and I find a great neighborhood and proceed to have our home built. I was ecstatic because I had also been stressed out about the neighborhood we were living in. The guy who lived in the cul-de-sac in our old neighborhood once stopped me from jogging to basically offer me drugs as if jogging and drugs went hand in hand to complete a healthy lifestyle.

June 2015- My mom begins receiving at home care.

Beginning of October 2015- Our house is finally built, and we move in! Finally some good stuff!

Mid-October 2015- Mom is rushed to the hospital. I stay with her for a week or two.

November 2015-January 2016- I travel back and forth to my parents’ residence each weekend, two hours away, to assist them in daily living. My dad is also diagnosed with dementia at this time. It then becomes another nightmare to take his car from him and get him to understand that he can no longer care for himself. My dad begins to receive at home care. My parents live together, so they can keep each other company, but it’s also double trouble! (:-)

At this point, I still have to drive with my head at an angle or resting because of imbalance and extreme fatigue. Once on a trip home from my parent’s house, I was on the interstate, and my eyes made it appear as if the road crinkled up in front of me. I had to figure out how to make it from my lane all the way over two more lanes so that I could pull off the road. Reminder: I could barely see.

February 2016 (Super Bowl Sunday) - I find out that after all of the prayers and trying, we are pregnant!

A few days later- We confirm the pregnancy at the doctor’s office. Note: I can’t be excited because right before I go in to see the doctor, I find out that "Aunt Flo" has arrived, and that is definitely not normal. The physician’s assistant congratulates me, but the doctor is not so optimistic. Because she had found that I had a very complicated condition, she believes I could be experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. For the next few days, I had to travel downtown after work or to another lab close by my house to check my pregnancy levels to see if they were increasing as they were supposed to or if they were decreasing. Initial tests showed they were decreasing, so the doctor broke the news that it was a miscarriage.

Beginning of March 2016- I received a call at work to come into the doctor’s office because my pregnancy levels were increasing again which was a sign that the pregnancy wasn’t ending itself and that it was indeed a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. I left work and headed downtown to the doctor’s office. I was admitted immediately to the hospital. (Side note: I had had a neurology appointment that day that I asked my husband to call and cancel. This tidbit will be significant later.)

Later that evening- At the hospital, I am given a drug to help terminate the pregnancy. My pregnant nurse pops her head in to tell me that she has to find someone to administer the drug to me because she’s pregnant and can’t even be around that particular drug. That makes me feel just wonderful! Oh, and I forgot to mention that I was alone while all of this was happening because my husband had walked my mother-in-law to her car in the garage and didn’t return until an hour later. I get it now, he was grieving too and needed consoling, but I was freaking out! I thought a masked gunman had kidnapped him and his mother in the garage when neither of them answered their phone when I had called thirty minutes after their departure. I then proceeded to call my sister who was on a trip out of town to see if she could call him. I can LOL now, but I was totally out of my mind then, and I was lonely and scared and hurt that I had to face the fact that I had to take a drug that my pregnant nurse couldn’t even get close to. Geesh! It was #TooMuch! I had asked another nurse to call the security guard to find my husband and his mom. By the time the nurse and I had finished the conversation, my husband walked in. The next day I was released, and my tube was saved. It had not ruptured as the doctors expected! It was a miracle! But, I had to experience the loss of my baby all over again.

March 8, 2016- Remember when I told you that the neurology appointment would be significant later? Well, here’s why. When I was finally able to go to my neurology appointment to find out why I consistently felt dizzy and fatigued, I was met by the front office staff with their request to receive a missed appointment payment. I verified that my husband called to cancel it, which he had. Then I proceeded to tell them that I was in the hospital for an ectopic pregnancy. They needed proof of my admittance, so I had to call my doctor and ask her to fax them my admittance information. The time of admittance to the hospital was after the time of my neurology appointment, so they said in theory, I should have made my neurology appointment. I had to explain that I had to see the doctor first, so the time of my neurology appointment was spent in the fertility doctor’s office discussing my next steps and hospital admittance. My fertility doctor was in disbelief and so was I. So much so that I broke down crying in the neurologist’s office. I never told the neurologist what happened with his front office staff, but I was sure they took their orders from him, so I decided to write a letter to him, which I never sent in. I also decided to leave a bad review, which I never did, but sitting here right now reliving that traumatic experience makes me want to post that letter on his website right now! I just might do that.

One week after my hospital release (Still March 2016)- My father is rushed to the hospital. My sister, my mother and I go to be by his side. My sister spends the night at the hospital with my father, and I take my mother home and spend the night with her. The next day, I take my mom back to the hospital to see my dad. While the nurse was in the room checking my dad’s vital signs, my mom stops breathing and becomes non-responsive. The nurse calls every available hand on that floor, and my mom is revived. We wait for six hours in the emergency waiting room of the same hospital we were already visiting for her to be seen by the triage department. My mother is finally admitted into the hospital and my sister and I spend one full week taking turns staying with both my mother and father in the hospital. Mom on one floor. Dad on the other. I had to continually P.U.S.H. my way through that because if you’re not familiar with an ectopic pregnancy, it can last anywhere from 1-3 months before the pregnancy is completely over. So, I was still going through the ectopic with hormones fully raging while trying to care for both parents.

Once both parents were released from the hospital- I was taking them home, and my dad jumped out of my car at a stop light to go to the bank. I screamed and said some choice words. My hormones were in full control at this point. I scared my mother, and I felt totally crazy, but I was able to calm down, find my dad at the bank and proceeded to take them home. He was just as happy as he wanted to be when I had just had a full nervous breakdown.

June 2016- My fertility doctor gives me upsetting news about my fertility.

June 2016- I began following fertility YouTube videos and taking various supplements and teas which caused heart rate increases, aggression, and mood swings. I stopped taking those, and we kept trying for our baby.

August 2016- September 2016- We keep trying, and I begin fertility massage.

September 2016- I see the movie War Room, and I create my own War Room. It’s a place that I initially went to meditate and pray. It’s also the future nursery. No, it’s not decorated, but it’s pretty much as empty as it can be until God places our baby in it.

October 2016- February 2017 - I am so bloated due to the fertility massage and experience daily abdominal discomfort. I stopped the fertility massage in October 2016.

February 2017- I have a flexible sigmoidoscopy (partial colonoscopy) to ensure I didn’t have any colon issues because of my daily discomfort and bloating. The test results were normal. I praise God for that, but wonder why so many gastro problems. I begin to pray even more and attempt to remove as much stress from my life as possible. I work out even more and begin to see some changes in the bloating and discomfort.

June 2017- I finally find out that the extreme fatigue, dizziness, imbalance, and floating feeling are what’s called vestibular disorder and migraine. Now, who in the world gets migraines without the pain? Me! That’s who! Thank you, Lord, for your favor even in the midst of illness. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The miracle of it was that the doctor who gave me the referral to the doctor who finally figured out my diagnosis was one of the first doctors I saw back in 2015 when I was shopping around for a fibroid doc. I had shared with him about the imbalance, and he had given me the name of a doctor who could help. At that point, my main concern was the fibroids, so I forgot to even look into that doctor. Two years later, things came full circle. I don’t even remember how I was led to him this time, but months after he had set me on the path to healing, I saw his name written on the referral form from two years prior when I had visited the fibroid doctor. I couldn’t even be mad that it took me two extra years to find healing for a problem I’d had for three years. By this time, I had learned that God had set everything up for a reason. I just had to trust His reasons even if I couldn’t understand them.

Sometimes the human part of us doubts God’s willingness to be good to us, and we don’t always trust Him with the big things like we should. Start trusting Him today with something small. Just like little children trust their parents for all things big and small, we have to trust our Father for all things big and small. If you can trust Him with a bunch of small things, when the big thing turns up in your life, it will be a little easier to give it to Him. Just remember the simple little things He’s done for you in the past, and that will keep you motivated to see what big things He has in store. Just believe!

Stay tuned for my third and final installation of my P.U.S.H. timeline story. You will see how God had to let me work myself into a dangerous frenzy for me to finally understand that He’s got this.

#lifesjourney #righteousness #illness #fibroids #dementia #alzheimers #hope #infertility