I am a 43 year old female Care Coordinator living in New Mexico. I have had the wonderful (said very sarcastically) experience of being referred to a rheumatologist recently. I wanted to share my experience and hopefully help someone out there who may be going through the same type things as myself.
I guess to start, I was never really a sickly child, other than asthma at the age of 3 and allergies, until I reached my teenage years.
However, I started smoking when I was 10. My parents smoked around me my whole life, so I guess I thought it was all right. (I know, I know, the stupidest thing to do)
When I was 15, I was diagnosed with a nervous stomach after being in and out of the hospital repeatedly due to not being able to keep food or liquid down, with the doctors shaking their heads, not knowing what to say or do after all the tests and poking and prodding. One hospital wanted to do an exploratory surgery, while the other said, “no take this medication.” Luckily I came across the right doctor that gave me the diagnosis and the medication that helped.
At 16, I had a kidney stone. Thank the Lord Above that that is the only one of those that I have had. I confused the doctors and even the x-ray tech over that one. It’s funny now, it wasn’t then. That was the first time I had “surgery,” even though it wasn’t a surgery. It still scared the hell out of me.
I had my first child at age of 19. Everything went smoothly, and for the most part uneventful.
At 19, I had my first real surgery. I had to have my appendix removed. Again, scared the crap out of me, I really didn’t like being put under the knife.
At 21, had my second child and my second surgery. Because the doctors had scared me so much through the pregnancy, I had decided that I did not want any more children so I got my tubes tied, even though the surgeons really didn’t agree with me getting it done at that age.
After that, I had been in and out of the emergency room for colds and strep often. I seemed to get sick at least every time the seasons changed. But as I got older, things seemed to calm down a bit, except for my allergies. My allergies got worse and worse.
At 30, I got really sick and could not keep food down (again). This time I was sent to a surgeon, who ran some tests and found that my gall bladder was not formed right from birth and giving me problems. So once again, under the knife I went, to have my gall bladder removed.
Just before my 34th birthday I ended up in the hospital with A-typical pneumonia. Almost died in one hospital, until I demanded to be transferred to another hospital where a lung biopsy was done, just to be sure. To add to this, this is still a mystery to me, because I was not sick before hand. Still not sure how I got so sick. And in the first hospital they told me that my red blood cell count was so low that they had to give me blood.
At 36, my Mom died and I basically did a retake of my health. I started going to the doctor more often and trying to take care of myself better. I went to an allergy specialist who told me that I was allergic to everything environmental except water. (Great, I should live in a bubble.)
At 37 it seemed like all hell broke loose. I started a period that did not stop. I went to one doctor that wanted to put me on five, yes I said five birth control pills a day – I changed doctors. I was sent to an OB specialist that put me on the Depo shot. The bleeding did not stop. We (meaning the doctor), decided to try the shot one more time, the bleeding still did not stop. I was then sent to another specialist, who suggested a uterine ablation. So, once again, another surgery. Thankfully the bleeding stopped. However, a year, all most to the day, I had to have a hysterectomy due to being in so much pain. Turns out that when the surgeons tied my tubes, they merely put on clips and one of my Fallopian tubes was retaining fluid.
This brings me to current day, (wow, that was long) I am still in and out of the doctor office. I just had a sinus ballonplasty (??) to open up my sinuses. I can breath now while I am sick, what a concept. I also found out recently that I have a goiter (tumor) on upper left lobe of my thyroid. I have headaches all the time, I have no energy. Nor do I have the want to do anything other than what I have to do. So this blog is just the day to day thoughts and updates as to what I have to put up with. Between the doctors and medications. The research that I have done, my fears, etc, etc.
Feel free to comment or share!! I am open to all.
Carla's Health Blog 