This time last year: I'm nauseated every second of every day. I'm getting excited for Halloween and decide to put up my prized decor early. There are bright orange pumpkins and little green peas in my garden and Jared is off to his first day of kindergarten. It's still warm out but I can sense the coming of fall in the air. I just painted my wall dark brown and hung an old door on it. Things are changing, big changes are happening, baby #3 on the way. So sick, but so excited. Hoping for a girl, praying for a girl, wanting nothing but a baby girl. {read about it HERE}
Today: My side aches every second of every day. The coming of Halloween and the thought of putting up my prized decor nauseates me. There are indeed bright orange pumpkins in my garden and Jared is off to his first day of first grade. It's still hot out, the swamp cooler is running full blast on me as I force myself to sit at my computer and work instead of lay on the couch in the fetal position and endure Ernest Goes to Jail for the 4th time this week. I want so badly to paint over that dark wall and turn that old door into a coffee table but I lack the energy. Baby #3, our precious 5 month old baby girl just went down for her 2nd nap of the day and I sit and listen to the whirring static of the baby monitor as I ponder. Believe it or not I have been nauseated for about 3 days now. Smells are getting to me and I have even dry heaved in the sink. If I didn't know better I would say I might be pregnant but it's not even a remote possibility. I'm having DejaVu! Everything is reminding me of this time last year and this time last year I was deathly horribly grossly ill with morning sickness! Hyperemesis Gravidarium. There has been a nagging pain in my side for about a month now. It began when I came down with yet again another kidney infection and has not left my side since (pun intended). I have had two ct scans, one with contrast dye and two x-rays, multiple blood tests and dozens of urine cultures. I have been to the ER so many times in the last month it's EMBARRASSING. Diagnosis? Renal Calculi. Kidney stones, infected stones, calcium deposits and crystallization in the kidney. Treatment plan? Do nothing..wait. The stones aren't large enough or in an area where they can be blasted using Lithotripsy..I just have to wait for them to pass on their own. Living in constant pain is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm dying!! (Of course I'll be fine, but I'm venting here.) I've got another infection now and the pain is pretty intense. I'm already on a course of antibiotics but that's just a band-aid fix to a deeper issue. I'm completely baffled as to the cause of all of this. I'm healthy. I'm positive (exclude current rant) and happy and I eat heathy and I drink water so much that I feel waterlogged most of the time. I believe in "our thoughts and words create our world" type of stuff and I also believe that we can create a dis-ease in our body by the way we think and believe but this is beyond my experience in the art of metaphysical healing! Frustration is an understatement here. It's really getting to me. One cannot shrink oneself into insanity. Yes, I want my pain to go away, but I refuse to go back on pain medications because I know how difficult it is to get back off of them. I debate about it daily. Dave got a job working 4 12 hour shifts and he also goes to school in the mornings so needless to say, my sanity and my reliability are needed here in this house. It's all me now. Today I am feeling so incredibly overwhelmed with the thought of fall and winter and spring...day after day, week after week of this..me..at home...every day..taking care of a home and kids and baby and a business, all while IN PAIN. Did I mention he will be taking our only car every day? (We're working on that.) Actually it's really not THAT bad..it's only for 4 days a week and we'll get to do fun things on the weekends..It's just about adjusting my plans and whatnot. I've been pretty good about adapting to change for the past 8 years..(being married to Dave has had it's share of changes: we've moved 13 times and had countless jobs) but this one has totally thrown me for a loop. I will adapt. I will roll with it. I guess at times in the buzz and busy of life I forget how extremely blessed I am, how I have so much and so much to look forward to. And, I guess, somehow I know it'll all turn out.
In other news, a week ago today I opted out of the world of fertility and underwent a tubal ligation. The admittance papers read: "Reason for surgery: Undesired Fertility". I feel a pang of...sadness mixed with a little bit of..guilt maybe..reading those words. So many around me right now are struggling to become pregnant..struggling to stay pregnant..and I have undesired fertility. We have been blessed with 3 perfectly healthy, beautiful children, and even if I could have another child without complications, I'm satisfied. I just wish I could give it to them it somehow. Put it in a little box and tie a ribbon around it.
Well, that's it for now and funny enough, I feel so much better since writing this post. My squishy little Pepper is sitting on my lap as I type and I can hear the joyous laughter of my boys drafting in through the open window. I truly am so blessed.
