The Hundlings

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Melanie the crazy lady

I wish I were more creative with post titles! This one is appropriate but not very appealing to my soul.
I've decided to write about what I'm calling my 'health journey' the past couple years. It's boring, but I'm hoping to look back in a couple of years and smile that it's all over with.
After Henrik was born I was blessed with what's called a 'retained placenta'. Google it if you find it to be fascinating. It was not fun and actually was about as painful as labor. It went 3 weeks undiscovered, although I had a temperature when we left the hospital with Henrik. The doctor pulled it out in the office to avoid the need for a d & c, then gave me some high dose antibiotics. I made it 3 days before the antibiotics made me sick. The doctor said "no worries, you can quit taking them". Hind site is perfect; I now wish I'd asked for a blood cell count. I continued to bleed for 3 months and was told that was normal.
Skip to 3 months later: I was always sleeping and always sad. Brice went to the doctor with me and told him the symptoms. Doctor said "not likely you'd have a major depressive episode all the sudden, let's check your hormones". Okay, sounds fun.
First test came back. Doctor calls and says "doesn't seem right, let's redo them earlier in the morning". Sure, why not. Only $800 each time. Did the test again, still not right. Got scheduled to see an endocrinologist a month later.
By this time I'm back to work. Doctor had started me on a birth control pill hoping that would clear up the bleeding. We go to Ames to see the specialist. We spend more time filling out paperwork than anything. The specialist seemed nice. But, spent two minutes to say "you are nursing a baby and on the pill, I can't help you until both are done for at least three months". We decide it's not worth stopping nursing the new baby so we accept this news and wait it out.
Fast forward to April this year, about 8 months later. Things still suck. I'm asleep by 830, falling asleep with company here, oversleeping, struggling with leg weakness when I run. Things feel worse. Our labs that we are required to get yearly from our insurance state my triglycerides are 18 (very low). A friend who works in cardiology states "you need to get that checked out, it means malabsorption". Back to the doctor who basically says "you are a mom of 3, you work, you will be tired" and prescribes an antidepressant. So, I guess now he's decided I'm depressed, but last year that wasn't possible :) I had done my own research that cholesterol/triglycerides are necessary to produce hormones, but the doctor said he couldn't comment on that and sent me to another endocrinologist in Iowa city. I asked if he was sure the infection from the placenta was gone, and he said yes. I was having tendencies to wonder about that due to the 2 root canals and 2 sinus infections I'd suffered in the meantime.
So away we went again, but not until I'd seen my eye doctor to rule out pituitary involvement. There was another $200. Off to Iowa city, where we were told my chart would be thoroughly reviewed before our visit. It wasn't. I was told the labs I had abnormal, namely the hormones and cholesterol were probably ok because "those are based on 95 percent of the population; you may just be that 5 percent". They checked vitamin D and a thyroid marker and home we went. We were told there was nothing more they could do, but that we should see a rheumatologist to rule out multiple sclerosis and/or rheumatoid arthritis. Hmmm, really? Now I was feeling like everyone thought I was nuts and a hypochondriac and I was just going to get shoved around in the system. I gave up and started doing a few things on my own. Gluten free diet, essential oils, a 10 day cleanse, less running and more weight lifting. Tons of reading about our health, some changes we'd already implemented including butter and no margarine, coconut oil and no canola oil, making more homemade bread. Others need worked on but as I continue to educate myself thru 60 minutes a day of podcasts while I'm driving we'll keep implementing all natural changes. But even with everything I've tried it still hasn't gotten rid of the muscularity fatigue and occasional numbness in my hands.
So at the encouragement of a friend I looked up 'Functional medicine doctors'. I liked what I read and found a guy in Des Moines. In the meantime my bill for $849 arrived from Iowa city, all out of pocket as insurance put it all towards deductible. Hooray :) even better the guy in Des Moines is an all cash basis; so although the I was tempted to cancel due to the mounting expenses, I kept the appointment. I have lots of things I still want to accomplish and I need to fully enjoy these years with my young children instead of just existing each day. So I paid the initial lab and consult fee.
I saw him this past Tuesday. The labs had tested for 25 different things.
The main standout was a ferritin level of 9. Apparently that is the main storage form of iron in the body. It's 78 percent lower than it should be, whatever that means. Only 15 percent of my iron binding sites are occupied by iron. Apparently this has never been checked. When donating blood my hemoglobin has been good but that test isn't completely sensitive to iron. The other revelation was the presence of a bacterial infection. Not sure where of course, that necessitates more expensive testing :) the final standout was extremely low triglycerides and cholesterol. Meaning the presence of hypothyroidism, inflammation, or liver dysfunction. The combination of these things apparently means the presence of an autoimmune disorder. The likely culprit is a disease called "hashimotos thyroiditis". I asked all 3 doctors (my regular dr and both endocrinologists) about this and they refused to test for it because they only see it in heavyset people. It is possible it would stem from the retained placenta. It's possible it's totally unrelated.
Now I get to send my poop in to see if the infection is in my gut. I get to take lots of iron. I've been told this is called "iron deficiency anemia" and is different than just anemia where the hemoglobin is low. If the pills don't help I'll need infusions but the question at this time is why I'm not holding iron and where is it going. The doctor suggested a paleo diet to try to normalize the gut and minimize the effects of the autoimmunity.
So after a couple years and several thousand dollars later I don't feel so much like a crazy lady anymore but I do feel annoyed that it took so long to get answers. Anymore it's hard to even work in the medical field due to the poor success of conventional medicine. But everything for a reason. I've learned so much and hopefully the nutrition and chemical education I've gotten will help the kids and make us an even healthier household. I hope to get the iron up, feel better, and go back to the life where I didn't go to the doctor unless I was pregnant!

Monday, August 24, 2015

Happy 1st Birthday, Henrik!

Here are some fun pictures of Henrik's birthday celebration! Clearly I'm behind...its almost time to celebrate his half birthday!

New toy!

Will's CHEESE face!

Family picture! Seems rare to get one of these as one of us is always behind the camera. This was in Henrik's new Radio Flyer wagon :)

St. Patricks Day!

I'm not sure what the faces were about here...

Gabbie participated in the Spring Show with the ESC Drill Team. I believe she's the 3rd from the left side

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Starting 2015 off with celebrations

Celebrating a new camers! Playing bubbles in winter. I used Christmas money to buy myself a new camera, so I had fun playing with that one day as the kids were enjoying some outdoor time.

Celebrating my Mom's birthday. What an absolute zoo! Ages: 8, 6, 3, 3, 1.5, & almost 1. All I could think was there is no way I could feed this many kids every night!

Celebrating Valentine's Day

Celebrating Grandpa David's birthday

Celebrating the purchase of a new fish and praying it is still alive when we get home

Celebrating a half birthday :) Will is 3 1/2 years old

Celebrating the Daddy/Daughter dance

And finally, celebrating the youngest child turning 1! What a crazy year.

It was hard to believe it had been nearly 6 months since I had updated the blog! It seems the first quarter of this year few by in a blink.

I have to admit the winter was busier than I prefer. Brice & I were both involved in a committee to choose a new administrator at the local nursing home. Meetings, meetings, meetings. I do enjoy voluteering; I need to do something where I'm not allowing myself to worry about income, effeciency, patient & employeer satisfaction, etc. But this volunteer experience became more than I had thought I was signing up for! Sometimes its overwhelming to think of the effect your words and decisions can make in such situations.

The winter was busy with some not so fun things. Some losses that hit pretty hard and made us grateful for every person under our roof at night, being reminded that things change in a heartbeat. Many days, and still today, I kept wishing we could help carry the burden of loss for the family remaining for some time to give them relief. We just have to keep remembering that someday God makes it all right.

In February I made the trip to California to visit my sister Mindy for a few days. The time always goes fast, though I have found its hard for me to enjoy a trip without the kids. This was the first time I had gone without taking any of them! I decided to save the money I'd spend taking myself and plan for a family trip a few years down the road.

I am on the Little League Board for Breda this year and we had meetings for that also. That is a volunteer experience that is suiting me well! I have a new appreciation for coaches. Teams have quite a bit that go into organizing them, plus you have to deal with the rules set by the organization! There are 5 of us on the board and its a fun group. It will be a fun summer and I am excited to get to coach Gabbie's team. Hard to believe Will is going to be old enough for T-ball this summer!

I have been swamped at work since I gained my lymphedema certification. I had planned to start working on my Masters in Healthcare Administration this summer, but now I am unsure if I will have time. Its a good problem to have. I have until June to decide if I will take a class this summer. Signs currently point to no, but this fall might be more appropriate to begin.

The lymphedema patients I have met have led me into another activity that I think will suit me well. I have had to become comfortable with working with patients with cancer, some who may never get better and my treatments become more of a comfort measure. Its a whole new ball game. Therapists are supposed to get people to feel better, improve their situation, aide on the road to recovery from surgery or injury, help someone regain independence. I've had to learn so much about my approach, changing my tone, answering tough questions. I've learned I do not mind it as much as I thought I would. This has let me to be interested in the program that my employer provides, called No One Dies Alone. I will be doing the training for this during 2015. In short, I will be like a hospice volunteer. I will write about this in more detail in another post sometime. Its hard to explain the peace this has brought to me in the little I have done with it so far. I have felt that often at the end of the day I worry about the things I don't have done, the workout I didn't do, the Pinterest type activity I didn't accomplish with the kids. Making the decision to be involved with this has already helped me live in the present, feel content with what has been done, and happy with the present for what it is. The program is through the pastoral care department at work. I hope I continue to feel so positive about it; I'm praying that it will uplift my days at work by incorporating the training from the hospital Chaplain and that I will continue to feel at peace being able to help others in this way.

Okay, I have been dominating this post with talk of myself. Lets move on. Brice has accomplished so much the past 6 months. He cleaned up the front of the barn, replaced the windows and doors, and installed the cooler for his "man cave/meat processing area". He's past the time frame he had predicted. But, as with any other project it will get done eventually :) We don't put the emphasis on it that we would if it wasn't for a 'hobby'. The past few weeks he's been busy pouring cement and working on the next 2 hog buildings. The boys and I helped set up the cement forms one day while we were home. Lots of work! Brice has some back pain and I can see why.

Gabbie has matured so much this year. She's reading books to us, its so neat to see. She forgets very little :) Of course we've heard a few times "this is the worst day ever" and "you are the meanest parents ever"; hooray for the drama of a girl. But we hear positive things too. She loves puzzles and has nearly completed her first 1000 piece puzzle (with occasional adult help). Next month is her dance recital! It will be a fun year to watch since she's in gymnastics now too.

Will is naughty :) And someday if he reads this and remembers ANYTHING about being 3 1/2 years old, he will totally agree with me. Of course he'd stay outside most of the time if able! He is still obsessed with Thomas the Train. Its almost embarrasing. I took the kids fishing today and Will was trying to talk to a couple young boys next to us and all I could gather from the conversation was the words "Thomas, Friends, Trailor". But, every kid has something they latch onto. He enjoys helping unload the dishwasher, which is awesome. He also enjoys fighting with his siblings, ugh!

Henrik has gone from cute, innocent baby to a brute force. He's 23 pounds and shows very little interest in walking. But he has a good uppercut and sometimes when I look in the living room I could swear he has Will pinned down! Henrik has a bit of a temper. But he still seems happy, and is only getting up once per night so I won't complain. We thought he had chicken pox last week, but we were wrong. Darn it. I would have smiled as I wrote that in his baby book "defiant to everyone and everything, including vaccines". But, it appears the chicken pox vaccine worked and he was having a skin reaction to something else. I still very much love my "Baby Henni" even if he is already showing some good tantrums.

Okay; I'm sure there's more I should add. But, my brain isn't bringing up any memories at the moment that can be written in short time. I need to get better about updating this or writing things down, as the kids say and do some really entertaining things sometimes that I'd love to share! Hopefully more soon.

More Christmas 2014 & Winter 2015

We enjoyed a visit from Aunt Mindy :) Here she is holding her friend Spike (A Land Before Time reference for those who have seen that)

Cookies!

Henrik loves anything that's round and can be thrown

Gabbie was in heaven when she got an easel for Christmas. By the end of the night she had drawn several family pictures, including everyone in the Iler clan

I suppose Elmo gets thirsty too

An intense game of Candyland. Its nice that Gabbie is growing up enough to accept losses once in awhile

Poor kid, has to eat off the floor

Brooklyn is 1!

Will's first day of preschool with friends Crue & Hadley

Christmas 2014

Finding the perfect tree

Santa!

Showing off for Santa! Typical middle child ;-)

Christmas church service with Kennedy!

Carroll Chorus Christmas Concert with Grandma, Great Grandpa, and Great Uncle

Santa brought sleds!

Gabbie put a lot of time into making sure everyone had a gift form her. She made pictures like this one and wrapped them for everyone :)

Elfie always had a gift to take back to Santa with him. This was a box made out of duct tape by Gabbie

Christmas Day story time

Another Santa pic :)

Gabbie's 6th Birthday & Halloween 2014

Gabbie wanted an "Elsa" cake (the princess from the movie Frozen). It took me awhile to figure out how to accomplish it, but eventually got the dress part made and stuck the doll in the middle.