I Heart Faces Week 13 My Friend & I

This is my entry for I Heart Faces Week 13 My Friend & I!
Go check out their blog to see all the SUPER cute faces in this week's contest!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Henry and Grant together.

I took this picture a few years ago, Henry was not quite 2 years old and Grant was probably 8 months old.

D is for...

Diagnosis

I got a call from my rheumatologist yesterday. I had called the office earlier in the day to talk to the nurse and find out what kind of pain medicine I could use at night to help me sleep. I spoke with the nurse, asked a few more questions, and waited for a return call. When the phone rang, I picked it up expecting the nurse, but it was the doctor. Now, I don't know about you, but I have rarely talked to any of my doctors on the phone! The nurses are almost always the ones who do the phone calls, so when it was the doctor on the phone my first thought was "This can't be good!" Based on all of the blood work that I had done last week, he is diagnosing me with Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Drugs

He gave me a little bit of information about RA, and then told me about the medicines that he would prescribe for me. The medicine that they use to treat RA is a chemotherapy drug! I was just a little SUPER freaked out! He said because I will be taking such a low dose, that most of the side effects won't happen....but it is still a chemo drug which is kind of scary! Depending on how my body reacts to the drug I could be on it for a short time or I could be on it forever. I will also have to take a folic acid supplement and I have to do blood work every 6 weeks to make sure the medicine isn't effecting my liver function.

I am really hopeful that this medicine will make me feel better and help me stay that way for a long time. It is kind of difficult to deal with the fact that I have a chronic illness, one that will never really go away. I think it may take a while for it to really sink in...and it will definitely take a while for me to fully accept it! We are praying that this is just a flare up of the disease, and that once the medicine gets it under control, I will be able to go back to my normal life.

Dealing

Other than dealing with the idea of a forever illness, we are also dealing with the fact that we may not be able to have any more kids. Jason and I had just recently started talking about having one more baby...but that is completely out of the question for right now. I CAN NOT get pregnant will I am taking this medicine, or for at least three months after I have stopped taking it {assuming that I will be able to stop at some point}. I have always felt like four kids was the right number for us, so we are trusting God with that fourth child! Adoption has been tossed around a little in the past, mainly because I really want a little girl...and Jason's genes obviously produce lots of little boys! We never thought adoption would be a necessity, just that it was an option. No matter how this turns out, we are trusting that God has a plan for family...three kids or four!


Determination


Eli is determined to keep my on my toes through all of this! He has grown up so much in the past two weeks. He sat up by himself for the first time. He can {and will} hold his own bottle now. He is getting another cute little tooth. And he is CRAWLING!! I know he is 7 months old, and it is about time he started crawling, he is just changing so fast! He just decided to take off one day last week. He has seriously gone from a sweet, happy lump of a baby to a fully mobile baby in less than a week! He is already getting into my laundry piles and the big boys' toys! Other than being SUPER determined....he is definitely a great DISTRACTION from all the stuff that is going in my life right now.

Thank you to everyone for their kind words, thoughts, and prayers. I am hoping to be back to {normal, no talk of sickness} blogging soon. I may ever post a picture for the I Heart Faces contest today!

Still feeling like crap sick

I don't have any more news....just that I am still not feeling good. But I think 'good' is probably an understatement....I haven't felt good in over a week, maybe longer.

We are back at our house after spending almost a full week at my mom's. Except for Henry who is on Spring Break this week and will probably stay with her for a few more days. For some reason two kids seem to be much easier to handle than three right now!

I haven't heard back from the doctor about all the blood work, but the longer this continues the more I know that there is something seriously wrong.

I have been on a new kind of steroid {my third round in the last three months} since April 2nd and I am only doing a little better than when I started out!

I honestly wish I could go back in time about a week and a half to when we thought it was just carpal tunnel! A simple surgery and all would be better.

Instead, I sit here day after day waiting for the news that I have some incurable autoimmune disease that I will have to live with forever.

I know that people can live normal lives with these kinds of diseases, but no one wants to be sick for the rest of their life!

Not knowing when I will feel good and when I will feel bad.

How do you make plans, when at any moment you could feel like crap be sick again?

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I think the worst part right now is that I can't sleep well. I am in pain....a pain that moves from place to place.

Saturday night it was my left knee and my left elbow

Sunday it was both knees and my left pointer finger {you would be surprised how much one little finger can hurt!!}

Last night it was my right knee and my left wrist

And really, it is the not knowing {and the waiting} that is sort of driving me crazy!

I really think if I knew what was wrong, I would start feeling a little better. Maybe if I knew for sure what it was, then I could try to do something about it!

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I feel like I have missed so much in blog land over the last week and a half!! And I have few fun things to post about when I am back to feeling better....hopefully soon!

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Sorry for such a depressing post!

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In the meantime, if you could say a prayer for me and my family I would really appreciate it!