As I drive down the interstate with a lab order sitting on the passenger seat, I have a thousand thoughts running through my head. "How am I going to pay for this? How much is the doctor's visit I just left going to cost? Is the procedure going to hurt? Why am I having to go through this?" Growing up, I always had this vision of a perfect man in my head. Allen checked all those points. We were married September 14, 2013 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It was a beautiful ceremony with our family by our sides. Naturally, we wanted to start a family soon after. We decided if it happens it happens, but not really pushing for it. I stopped taking my birth control right before we were married. After about nine months without a cycle, I knew something wasn't normal. I decided to go to my doctor who then referred me to an endocrinologist. The closest one was an about an hour and a half way. So Allen, my mom, and I drove to this doctor's appointment with hopeful hearts that we would get the answers we wanted. I was diagnosed with Grave's Disease and told my thyroid was the culprit. I was placed on steroids and told the best option was to essentially "kill off" my thyroid. This meant I would be on medication for the rest of my life. Up until this point, I had been a fairly healthy person. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome when I was about 19 but, it was managed. At this time, I was 170 pounds (less than when I graduated high school; woohoo me!) which may sound a little heavy for most but, being 5'8 was a sensible weight for me. On January 28th, my husband and I drove the 77 miles to their radiology department so they could give me a pill that would oblate my thyroid. Let's just talk about this pill for a minute. It was a radioactive isotope I had to swallow. So, my husband and I walk back to this little room with a radiology technician. He sits me down in a chair, as my husband stands in the door way. The technician leaves and comes back in with this metal box and black rubber gloves; just like the ones you see Victor Frankenstein use to pull down "the switch" to shock the corpse lying on his table back to life. He then sits the metal box on the counter, pulls two white plastic cup from the dispenser and fills one will water, and sits them on the side table. Then, he opens this box. It almost looks like an oversized briefcase. In it, there's a metal tube surrounded by black foam. He puts tongs in the case to get the tube out and twists the top off, dumping this little white capsule from the tube into the empty cup. He then instructs me, "Take this capsule from the cup without touching it with your hands and swallow it." After ingesting this little white capsule, I can't be within six feet of another person for 48 hours. Now this may seem simple but, it's very strange. Not only can I not be around anyone else, I have to flush the toilet multiple times after I relieve myself, sleep in a separate bed, wash all dishes, clothes and sheets in a separate load all to ensure no one is exposed to any radioactive materials. It was such an unusual experience. Not only did I have to go through that, my endocrinologist put me on a medicine to help my body transition from having an overactive thyroid to one that does nothing. The medicine I was put on was called Propylthiouracil, PTU for short. My body and PTU didn't seem to agree. I would start out the day just fine but, by the end of the day I would be scratching my skin off. Finally after stopping the medication, my body was getting back to normal. By April, I had gained around 60 pounds. The endocrinologist didn't seem to care that I had gained the weight and every time I went back to him, it was like being greeted by a new person. He had no idea who I was. He would stand in the exam room, reading his computer trying to place the things that had happened in chronological order. I can remember sitting on the table and him ask, "Now who oblated your thyroid?" Needless to say, I left his practice and started going to a doctor about 30 minutes from home.
Things started to look up. Allen and I began to try and get pregnant again. Months passed with no positive test. We began counting days watching my cycle and planning. It became increasingly difficult to figure out my cycle. I started to notice it was irregular and we couldn't actually figure out when I was ovulating. Slowly I began to not even have a cycle. So I asked my primary to refer me to a gynecologist. I went for my first appointment and was placed on a medicine that force me to have my cycle. For the first 10 days of the month I would take medroxyprogestrone then I would begin to shed my uterine lining. It was painful for the first four or five months until my body got used to the medicine. So then the next step was for us to try again. We started counting days, and peeing on sticks, with again no results. The gynecologist I was referred to was a nurse practitioner that was very limited on what she could do. I again went back to my primary care and was referred to a gynecologist who could further assist. I went for the first time around Christmas 2015. I had the whole nine yards, blood work etc. I got a call that night from the doctor telling me that my sugar was in the high 300's and my liver enzymes were four times the normal. She wanted to do a work up for hepatitis and asked me some scary questions, like if I had been exposed to any blood or needles. Needless to say, everything came back negative for hepatitis. I went to my primary because my endocrinologist couldn't see me until much later. My A1C was 9.5 which meant for three months I had been an uncontrolled diabetic. Let me preface this with my father and I have the same doctor. When he was diagnosed as a diabetic, his A1C was the same, and our doctor was talking about admitting him into the hospital because of the severity. At the time of my diagnosis, our doctor was on maturity leave and I had to see another provider in her practice. He was not concerned at all about my sugar and saw no need to address my high sugars until four days after he received the blood work. It was a very emotional, trying time for our family.
So after three months of dealing with a new diagnosis of diabetes, being put on yet another medicine that I was allergic to, I finally had my diabetes under control. I got my A1C down to 5.5 after another three months and I had lost a little bit of weight. My endocrinologist was finally able to see me and changed the medicine to Tanzeum and Invokana, so NO more insulin! We were finally on what seemed to be our way to getting pregnant. So, I scheduled an appointment with my gynecologist again. She seemed really impressed I had gotten my diabetes under control and felt like we were on the right track. After a month, the gynecologist wanted to do a uterine biopsy to see if there were any abnormalities. When she told me about this biopsy I was very nervous. I asked Allen if he could take off work to come with me, just in case. We did it in her office and she warned me I would have some pain mostly because she would have to dilate my cervics. Since I haven't had a child she was afraid this might be a bit of a challenge. The day had come for the biopsy. We went to her office and my name was called to come back and Allen and I went to the x-ray room to have an ultrasound prior to the procedure. After the ultrasound, we went to an exam room for the biopsy. After a short wait, the doctor came in for the procedure. The dilation wasn't as bad as I had thought. Then, she went in for the actual biopsy. That was an intense pain I had never felt before. It was as if a little troll was in my uterus running around with a knife screaming "YAH YAH YAH!" Not only did I have to endure that pain once but twice. When the biopsy results came back normal we were back to counting days of my cycle and taking ovulation tests that were consistently negative. After another few months with no luck of pregnancy, I went back to the gynecologist. She then tells me she wants to schedule a hysterosalpingogram, HSG for short, to view my uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries. So we schedule it for the specific day in my cycle when I'm supposed to be ovulating. The hospital call me the day before the test and tell me it's going to cost me $320; just adding to the many frustrations we have going on. Allen and I both take off work again and go to our nearest hospital for the test. We arrive about half and hour before the scheduled time, register and wait. The technician comes out and says, "I need to talk to you about your test." She walks me to the back and tells me that the radiologist at this hospital don't do this procedure, normally the gynecologist come down and do it themselves. So I call my gynecologist let them know the issue, and they scheduled it for a different hospital.
So, I got my scan today. Here again, I have someone in the medical field sticking a cold, plastic speculum to view my uterus just to have them tell me, "everything looks normal." The emotional stress of this is beyond intense. You get to a point where you actually hope something is wrong, just to have
an explanation as to why this is happening. I walk to my car, trying to hold back tears thinking, "Why do we have to go through this?" It pains me to see this wonderful loving man, wanting nothing more than a family with me, and I'm struggling to give him that. You begin to question what you did to deserve this stress. We're trying to have a child, a decent job, a new house and keep our heads afloat financially. Bills on the table getting higher and higher, and I can't seem to have one thing go my way. I try to tell myself, everyone has stress, everyone is fighting a battle I know nothing about. So this is my first post. My first attempt in trying to keep my sanity in all this mess. Maybe my brain will stop running all the time and this rat race will be worth while. My apologies for any grammatical errors. I am no professional. #lifeishard
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