PCOS

All posts tagged PCOS

So…Probably Not Pregnant

Published January 14, 2019 by Malia

(Okay, if you’re squeamish about words like period, then this post is probably one you want to avoid.)

I spent the first two weeks of this new year thinking I was pregnant.  All the symptoms were there, and then my period started on Saturday, so yeah…probably not preggers.

This isn’t the first time I’ve thought I was pregnant.  In fact I’ve even had a few times when the test has shown up positive, but it’s never lasted.  I’ve not been public about those pregnancies, mostly because I felt like such a failure.

This is the first time that I’ve genuinely felt both disappointed and thrilled when my period showed up.  The disappointment stems from knowing that this means more waiting.  The thrilled part comes from the fact that I’ve actually managed to have a normal cycle for one of the very few times in my life.

My heart has undergone a shift.  I’ve gone from being willing to be a mom but feeling unsure about whether I really wanted kids, to knowing that I genuinely want to be a mom, and not just because I know Tom wants to be a dad.  I’ve never bought into that idea that you’re not a family or complete without kids.  I’ve known for a long time that kids may be just out of the realm of possibility (thanks a lot, PCOS).  Our family was formed when we said, “I do.”  Children would just make our family bit bigger, and I suddenly find myself really wanting that.

Now, I find myself facing the fact that I absolutely must get healthy.  If I want to have a hope of a successful pregnancy, or of having an adoption agency being willing to even talk to us, I have to be mentally and physically healthy.

Published February 3, 2018 by Malia

A few weeks ago, a friend texted me this:

When I met this friend, a year ago, I had no idea she’d become my infertility/pcos bestie. Up until she entered my life, my friends could be divided into the following categories:

1. Pregnant (or will become pregnant very soon). Also, probably, has at least two kids already.

2. No kids, and no desire for kids.

3. No kids, and not trying, but will probably have a gaggle sometime in the near future.

As you can see, there’s no category for “No kids, and the baby making parts are refusing to do their job.” The category that I belong in. Weirdly, until this woman entered my life, I had no idea how much I needed a friend who fit in that category with me.

Because, here’s the thing. We all need someone who understands where we are in life and can honestly attest to the fact that the struggle sucks. Being alone in a struggle is one of the worst, most lonely places to find yourself. I love having a friend that can commiserate with me over the fact that daily tracking of cervical mucus is super boring when it NEVER bothers to exist. (My chart is one of the most unexciting you’ll ever see.) And as much as I love the pregnant people in my life, and am excited that they get to be parents; there are times that the pain and frustration of feeling broken, because my body doesn’t work right, needs to be vented.

I give the boy credit, he’s so loving and supportive, and has never once told me I’m broken. But, he doesn’t truly know how I feel. My friend does.

She’s been trying for years and years longer than I have. She’s been through a journey that I’ve just barely begun to have a taste of.

So, if you are going through the infertility battle and you don’t have anyone that understands, please know that I do. I get it. You’re not alone.

You take the good, you take the bad…

Published January 2, 2018 by Malia

When we driving home from my in-laws on Christmas Eve I had this thought enter my brain, “Next year, there might be three of us.”  And for the next 48 hours I was in a pretty happy, pretty hopeful place.

No, I’m not pregnant.  I didn’t think I was.  But, there was this smidgen (and boy ,do I mean smidgen) of a chance, that in the next year I might be.

So here’s the deal, last Wednesday, I was supposed to have a surgery.  My doctor was going to shrink my stupid giant ovaries down to normal size by cutting wedges out of them.  There was no guarantee, but there was this chance that it’d undo a lot of my PCOS mess.  There was a chance that I’d actually be able to make some progress on the weight loss front.  There was even a chance that it’d make me a little less insulin resistant.  There was a chance it’d make the mystery pain go away, and that it would lessen my mood swings.  And…there was this chance that I could get pregnant and stay pregnant.  I was so excited.  I was weirdly calm.  I think I was so desperate for just one of those many things to be a little bit better that it outweighed the anxiety and fear I was also experiencing.

And then I went to my pre-op last Tuesday…

Picture it…9 a.m. the day after Christmas.  I got to my appointment, and things promptly went downhill.  My first warning sign came when I was going through my paperwork, verifying that they had my info correct, and noticed that they had down the doctor from my work’s employee health clinic down as my primary doctor (she’s nice and I have seen her in the last year, but she’s not my primary doctor, or even my ob-gyn).  I pointed this out, and the receptionist told me that she wasn’t able to change that, and that someone in the surgery center would need to fix it on the day of my surgery.  I remember feeling confused as to why she’d asked me to check to make sure everything was correct if she couldn’t actually change any of it.

I then got taken into the exam room.  Both the nurse and the anesthesiologist were either really annoyed they had to work the day after Christmas, or were super hungover, or both.  I just know that they were both in bad moods, and every time I tried to be even a little funny I got death glares from both parties.  First, the anesthesiologist was upset with me because of my diabetes and my difficulty keeping my blood sugars down.  Then, she was annoyed that I’m overweight.  To make it a trifecta, I frustrated her because I snore so I must have sleep apnea and I really need to be getting that treated.  I should probably be undergoing a sleep study (at least, according to her).  If I hadn’t been stressed and anxious before, I was at that point.  A great way to feel the day before surgery.  More than once the anesthesiologist informed me that I was ONLY having an elective procedure and I really wasn’t in any condition to have any elective procedure.  I kept thinking, “I’m not here for bigger boobs.  You know those things that you’re really frustrated and annoyed with me about?  This is a procedure that could actually make those things better.”

They drew my blood.  The anesthesiologist gave me many print outs (all about the health problems that she had concerns about), gave me another lecture about how I really shouldn’t be having an elective procedure, and I went home, my calm now tinged with a small amount of dread.

That evening, I was about to go flush out my system (yeah, that’s as nasty as it sounds), and I got a phone call.  From my doctor.  And it started with her saying, “I’m so sorry, I was so sad when I heard about tomorrow.  I was really looking forward to seeing you.”  (I should mention here that my doctor is a beautiful, kind, sweet woman who genuinely gives a crap and actually listens to me and I kind of love her.)

To which I replied, “What about tomorrow?”  Dread amount was no longer in the small category.

“Didn’t the hospital call you?  They said they called you.”

“No, they didn’t call me.”

Turns out that blood draw (the one that a week later I still have a bruise from), sent a result back that the anesthesiologist didn’t like.  And just like that, my surgery was cancelled.  The hospital called my doctor  while she was performing someone else’s surgery, and left her a message regarding the cancellation.  They gave me no chance to redo the tests, or to fight to stay on the schedule.

I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.  The sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe something was finally going to get fixed in my body, was gone, at least for now.  I cried all that night.  I cried the better part of surgery day.  And then, I think my body just ran out of tears.  It’s now been a week, and I’m still hanging in there.  I’m disappointed that I have to shelve the surgery for now.  However, it’s not like it’ll never happen, and even if it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world.  I have an amazing husband, adorable pets, precious nephews and a niece, and a collection of graphic novels that should keep me entertained for the next two years (possibly more, it’s amazing how cheap you can get them on Ebay.  The boy need not know how much I’m adding to our already large collection…).

And for now, I’m going to refuse to give up hoping that someday, in the future, I’m going to be a better, healthier me.

So…It’s Been Awhile…

Published June 10, 2015 by Malia

I think this pretty much covers it.

Turns out, thinking about writing blog posts and ACTUALLY writing blog posts are two different things.  Over the last few months, I’ve frequently had ideas and thought, “That’d make a good post,” and then never followed through.  So, it’s time to play catch up…

April

As far as I can remember, the last updating I did took place in April.  Which, while not a long time ago, is well over a month past.  April ended interestingly.

When the boy and I got married, we were on pretty different work shifts.  He would leave for work before 7 a.m. and get home mid-afternoon.  I, on the other hand, would start work at 1:30 p.m., and not get home until well after 10 p.m. (just in time for the boy to head to bed, and me to be wide awake with post work adrenaline).  Going into our marriage, we both knew this was something we were going to have to deal with, and I honestly thought it’d be okay.  Which only goes to show that I’m an idiot.  In truth, it was misery.  It was depressing.  It was lonely.  So, at the end of April, when I saw a perfect job opening at a local hospital.  So, I submitted an application.  And then a week later I got a call from the hospital asking me to come in for an interview.  It was one of those interviews that when I left I honestly couldn’t tell if I was going to get a job offer, but they assured me they were going to call my current job to verify that I really did work there.  Which meant I had to tell my boss that I had gone on an interview.  To cut a very long, boring story short, my boss wasn’t exactly thrilled when I shared this tidbit with her, and I didn’t get offered the job at the hospital.  However, my work offered to let me change schedules, which meant that I didn’t have to start somewhere new, and no more long, lonely mornings home alone.

May & Early June

May will be remembered as the month of medical drama.  About a week after the wedding (back in March), I started having bad abdominal pain.  Because I’m super stubborn, and completely convinced that things will just get better, I put off going to the doctor until May.  Finally, I broke down and decided to go get checked.  The first two weeks of May found me going to the Ob-Gyn and the Endocrinologist.  Neither were fun visits, and neither gave me a decent answer for the abdominal pain.  All that really happened was that I ended up back on Metformin (for diabetes and the PCOS).  My Metformin dose was supposed to start slow, and every week go up.  The first week I had to up the dose, I started getting super sick.  Migraines, pain, dizzyness, nausea, and other fun things plagued me for three solid weeks.  I couldn’t eat, was having trouble sleeping, and was generally miserable.  I spent a decent amount of time playing phone tag with both the Ob-Gyn & Endocrinologist offices.  Both just kept blowing me off and telling me it was just my reaction to the Metformin and to take upping the dose slower.

By the start of the third week, I had the worst sore throat I’ve ever had.  The start of the third week was also my first week on my new shift at work and it was a horrendous week.  Fearing that I might have strep, I ended up at a quick sick clinic.

I didn’t have strep.

No, as of last Thursday, I learned that I have Mono.  Not only do I have mono, but this is actually the second time in my life I’ve had mono.

I wish it felt this cute.

Through it all, the boy truly has been my steady rock.  He has taken such good care of me.  Definitely has made me feel valuable even when I have felt super worthless.  He’s nursing me through this mess, and gone on more chocolate milk pick-up trips than has been fair to him (side note: whole chocolate milk is so thick and creamy it’s the perfect thing to drink if you can’t swallow anything else).

So, in case this has all been TL/DR (too long/didn’t read)…Started a new shift at work, got mono, my husband is amazing, and I am now going to try to update more faithfully.

Random Saturday Musings

Published October 6, 2012 by Malia

Tonight, I’m not really in a”random” or a “musings” frame of mind.  Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been in a bit of a slump.  I didn’t really feel like sharing everything that was going on.  The whole point of this blog is to be open and honest about what’s going on in my life.  The good stuff, the fat stuff, and the just plain hard stuff.

Almost three weeks ago, I found myself visiting Student Health.  I’d been feeling really unwell, and I figured I might as well find out what was wrong.  I was examined and tested, and I finally got some answers this week.

Turns out, I’ve got Type 2 Diabetes & PCOS.  I was expecting the PCOS.  I wasn’t expecting the diabetes.

I’m still processing this diagnosis.  Overall, I’m hardly surprised, but it’s still a struggle.  My emotions feel like they’re a yo-yo.  One minute I’m super focused and totally prepared to face this, and the next, all I can think of are the people I’ve known who’ve lost limbs, and eventually their life to type 2.  I find that I go from sad to driven to scared to acceptance to denial to happy surprisingly quickly.  Like I said, yo-yo.

So, now I won’t just be writing about trying to lose weight, but I’ll be documenting dealing with this new adventure.