The Beginning: My Health

My health took a huge plummet starting November 14, 2015. I was supposed to go to a women's ministry event at church that evening, but instead ended up in bed, barely able to get up. The Mister had to cook dinner because I couldn't stand long enough to do it. In the months leading up to that day, I knew things weren't quite right in my body, as I was waking in the middle of every night for long stretches (something that has literally never happened to me, not even to go to the bathroom) and was often an emotional mess and could never figure out why. That November day I began researching adrenal fatigue. My mom has suffered with it and my symptoms sounded familiar to hers. My self-diagnosis with adrenal fatigue seemed pretty sound, so I began self-treating as well. I started taking supplements and started eating foods that were supposed to be kind to my adrenals. No miraculous changes occurred, but I was able to be up and about. For the most part. I worried that with everything I assumed to be going on in my body, that it might not be a good thing for me to get pregnant. In fact, I worried it would be a very bad thing.
The Mister kept encouraging me to see a doctor. Namely my primary care physician on base. I had already read over and over again that mainstream doctors do not recognize adrenal fatigue and had looked up some doctors in our area who claimed to treat adrenal fatigue. And without going into an extra long rant about how much I haaaaate seeing the doctor on base (my doctor changes every year or so, so "they" are a few I am lumping together into one person), I will say that I have story upon story that demonstrate nothing but incompetence. I obliged The Mister though and set up an appointment for Monday, December 7th. Just over a year ago today. The time came for my appointment and I asked The Mister to accompany me because I feared the nonsense I would have to deal with. I needed moral support. I explained my symptoms (lack of sleep, crazy emotions, some anxious feelings, etc) and told the nurse I was pretty sure I had adrenal fatigue. Her first course of action was to screen me for anxiety and depression. Like mental health screen me. I was so frustrated, sitting there in the room with just The Mister, circling numbers on scales about how often I felt like hurting myself, hurting others, etc. (Before I get any backlash, I get it. They have to do it. They're covering their behinds. Doesn't make it any less frustrating.) I finished the screening below the threshold for a referral to mental health and then the doctor came in. She went over everything I had told the nurse and still seemed to want to diagnose me with anxiety. She ended my appointment with an offer to test my thyroid and iron levels and do a blood cell count before handing me a pamphlet on getting good sleep. Eye roll. After having blood drawn, I left base for Walmart to grab some groceries. In the parking lot I called up Four Rivers Naturopath in Auburn and set an appointment for that Thursday. I knew the base doctor wasn't going to be able to help me. Thursday came and while in the car, driving to my naturopath appointment, the base clinic called to let me know all of my levels were "just fine." Yeah. I obviously was not "just fine." Thanks. Bye.
In my one and a half hour appointment with Dr. Greta, the naturopath, we covered my entire medical history, my marriage and its ups and downs, and my spiritual beliefs. She noted how much stress I had been under since since the time of The Mister's deployment, which only carried on in assuming the role as President of PWOC (women's ministry on base) shortly after he returned. Part of my coping mechanism for dealing with all of the stress and my to-do list, was to knock eating off of my list of priorities. I was constantly running all day off of one large cup of coffee for breakfast and then eating only dinner. Typing that now causes me to shake my head. How in the world could I have thought that was ever going to be ok? At the end, she said she wanted to do testing, but that she was pretty sure I had adrenal fatigue and hypoglycemia, which were feeding each other, and a few other minor, but chronic issues. I went home that day with some supplements and a new diet plan to address my assumed issues.
With all of the testing I needed to have done, I didn't have a follow-up until mid-March. At that appointment, we reviewed my test results. My adrenals were, in fact, very low. I was high in dopamine but low in norepinephrine, meaning my body wasn't converting dopamine into norepinephrine. I had low cholesterol, which your body uses to build hormones, and all of my hormones were also low. My white blood cell count indicated an infection somewhere in my body and my liver wasn't operating at an optimum level. We talked about diet and sleeping habit changes, and I left with another slew of supplements, these more specific to what we now knew was going on in my body.
I was so relieved to have answers about what was going on in my body, but I was crushed at the same time. In that appointment, Dr. Greta advised me to avoid getting pregnant for at least six months. She explained I was probably at a very high risk of having a miscarriage, even if I did get pregnant. Despite me being worried back in the fall about getting pregnant, The Mister and I continued being open to getting pregnant and not preventing it. It had been six months already and I had assumed something would have happened by then, but it hadn't. I couldn't fathom going back to actively avoiding for yet another six months. But I also couldn't fathom losing a baby either. Here I will recall to you watching my friend grieve her stillborn, precious baby boy. I cried on the drive home that evening, feeling extremely hopeless.

( I have to make a note here about this Scripture image. Every one I have posted so far, even in the group on Facebook, has held significance in my life over the past few years. None were chosen willy nilly and I decided to coordinate each with a post it seemed to go with. The first half of today's was a verse that was used at the PWOC retreat back in April 2015, which I attended while The Mister was still deployed. There was a sticker with that verse printed on it that I hung on our fridge. It's been there ever since. In dealing with adrenal fatigue and trying to minimize stress, I know God was telling me this over and over. So I went into the Bible app, where I've been creating these pics, found the verse and told it to put it on the image I had selected. My immediate thought when it popped up was "Ugh. I didn't realize the parentheses part was in there. Wonder if I can delete it." And then, not a second later, as I actually read the words in between the parentheses, "Wow! How have I missed this for a year and a half now! This is PERFECT!!" God is still speaking to me. )