Vampire Treatment

It has been a VERY interesting past 10 days. As you probably read from my previous post, I was having a rough week last week to say the least. I was completely exhausted mentally and physically and thought I was just overdoing it attempting to be Super Mom and putting too many expectations on myself. Turns out I was literally on the brink of my body shutting down-no wonder I felt so bad LOL

Gonna warn you, this is not pretty, I'm opening up sides of myself that I normally keep shut real tight but its part of this whole lovely cancer journey so I'm sharing in hopes that maybe someone else might just go thru something as wacky one day and it'll help them:) I refuse to let this cancer be wasting so this is how I'm putting it to use for the time being!!

Sunday morning I lost it-literally, screaming, crying and puking my guts up(luckily Ben and the kids were at church so they didn't have to witness Mama lose her mind). I stood in the bathroom for 30 minutes attempting to decide whether to take a bath or a shower. I was attempting anything that might make me feel better (aka like I wasn't going crazy). I never could decide, so I did both. Yes, I took a bath, soaked for maybe 5 minutes and then took a shower.

The screaming/crying/puking mania commenced. I was able to call my mom but she couldn't understand a word so luckily she came right over. She ended up taking me to the ER-they weren't much help but did run blood work (they said they wanted to see what drugs I had taken too much of LOL). They gave me Ativan to settle me down and sent me home. I slept til the next morning. My mom and Ben took me to Ozark Guidance (we were still thinking my hormones were all out of whack and that everything had finally hit me and I was losing my mind-it was ugly, I was catatonic and could only answer "yes" "no" questions). The counselor said I needed to quit trying to be Super Mom and realize me losing my mind was only temporary and take some extra Lexapro.

Luckily my mom was able to get me an appt with my normal doc (Kim Carney, nurse practitioner at Bville Medical Assoc-helps out Dr. Arkins and is my newest hero). She had the ER fax over all the tests they had done. Smart chica figured out my hemoglobin was dangerously low. She ran and got Dr. Arkins really fast and he said, "I'm calling your oncologist and we are getting you a blood transfusion immediately and then you are seeing a hematologist because something is very wrong." Ben has been going to Dr. Arkins since he was Bella's age and said he has never seen him look so serious and so scared. Kim worked with the oncologist's office to get me admitted to Mercy on a direct admit. I've always had a thing against Mercy-I have no idea why, just something in my head. I can honestly say, now that I've been to every single hospital in the area (NW, WillowCreek, Washington Regional and now Mercy), that if I ever need anything again (ok, so WHEN...) I'm going to Mercy.

I was admitted around 3:30pm, had to get a bag of fluids while they ran my blood type and cross checked all kinds of stuff and got my first unit of blood started around 6:00. I had to get 3 units total so we didn't get out of there til 3am. SUPER boring but I can honestly say I'll thank God for blood donors for the rest of my life. Apparently I was somehow running on only 1/3 of the blood a normal person needs to function. THATS why I was "going crazy" and just not being me and not operating like a sane person-my brain wasn't getting enough blood and oxygen:) Seriously it was the hugest relief to know I wasn't wacko and hadn't lost it-I seriously felt that way and could not stop crying thinking they were going to lock me up and I was going to lose my babies. Nope, my body was just very near to crashing!

I will now be seeing a general oncologist that will be my head hauncho-I'll call him when I feel like I'm going crazy:) They are going to run tests in 2 wks (Aug. 3rd) to see if the "blood soaked in" (aka my body processed the new blood the way it should). If so, then this is just a one time thing which is likely the result of my body starting out behind because I have anemia then getting depleted from all the bleeding I had from the cancer plus the radiation zapping all my cells. But they also want to find out why my body is not rebuilding new blood cells to replace everything I've lost. If my body doesn't process the new blood, then I have to see a hematologist to start testing for various blood disorders (pray no new cancers).

So I need some more of your awesome mega super prayers!!! Please pray that I continue to feel great mentally and only improve; that I start to regain some energy (according to the docs after the blood transfusion I was going to "feel like a new person"-I don't and that scares me); that I get stronger physically and the fatigue starts to fade; that the tests in August show GOOD things; that I continue to draw closer to God (last week I felt like there was a huge wall between us-nope, just my bloodless mind) and draw from his strength to not let all these fears sneak into my spirit.

Thanks:)