Hello from the otherside - Part 1

It's so good to be back to writing again! For those of you who live far away and are not aware of what has been happening with us. I have been fighting an undiagnosed autoimmune illness for the last four years, otherwise known as the medical merry-go-round! Visiting doctor after doctor in hopes that they would give me a name for all of my crazy symptoms!

You would think that when you are sick and at home more often that it would leave more time for writing and blogging. Well, it turns out I just didn't have any posts in me! It's strange but it's like there was nothing there to offer- for three years! Oddly enough, I was driving back from Costco (love that place!) and a blog post began to write itself. But, I realized I had to explain where I have been and catch people up first.

So, here is the some-what short version. After the girls got well (yippee - they are doing great by the way) my body basically fell apart. It was like I had been holding it together through all of the stress but then after they were doing well then I knew I could fall apart. The truth is that some of this had been coming on for years but the symptoms were subtle and easy to ignore. It began with slight nausea on a regular basis. I would go to gastroenterologists and they would check me for H.Pylori or an ulcer but would find nothing, so I would just keep on going. Then I began to develop dizziness on a regular basis. It was disconcerting but once again manageable. These two symptoms went on for 7-10 years with no known reason. At 41 I had surgery for Endometriosis. The surgery was a success and relieved a lot of my pain. Immediately after surgery I developed anxiety/panic attacks, which I had never had before. It was so soon after surgery that I thought it was due to the pain meds I was on. Now, in retrospect, I think it was hormonal. I still get them occasionally now but it seems to be when my hormones are not balanced.


I coasted through life for the most part and was enjoying being a mother to Zoe. I did not let any of these things keep me down. I would drive for hours to go visit my family or go down to the city of Atlanta, etc. Life was good and these things were just minor nuisances. In 2010 we brought Joelle home. She was precious and we were excited to expand our family! I won't go into all of the details but let's just say that Joelle's three years in the orphanage had really traumatized her (understandably so) and she was struggling to fit into the family. We moved to Montana for 15 months for Mikes job. This threw her into a tailspin and us as well. We were not parenting her in the way that she needed and we had to learn to do it differently. We eventually did but it took us a while to get there and much prayer I must say! Once she started to get better, I started to get sicker and sicker. The dizziness got worse and I developed extreme stomach pain that radiated to the back. My stomach began to swell up after eating and I would be in intense pain. I would have trouble breathing due to the swelling. The summer of 2013 I went gluten free in hopes that it would relieve some pain and help me heal. My gallbladder was removed in September of 2013. The stomach pain got a bit better but immediately after the surgery I became much, much sicker. I developed what I would call chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and many symptoms of P.O.T.S.

When people say that they have chronic fatigue most people think of normal fatigue that one feels after a hard day of work. What that person really experiences is a fatigue so great that it feels as if all the energy has drained from their body. You may take a shower and have to rest before drying your hair. You can rest and rest but you do not get up with any more energy than you had before laying down. I would stand up and feel like I was going to pass out. My blood pressure went from 120/80 for the past 20 years to 99/70. Needless to say, there were ER visits galore because I did not know what in the world was happening to my body!

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