Jan. 12, 2008 - Much to Be Thankful For

I can't believe it's been almost 5 1/2 months since I last wrote here.  So much has been happening that I would love to share with the world. But as I have been called to do, I will continue telling this story.  If you haven't read my blog before, go to the right and start reading my story from the beginning; I hope it blesses you to read about the goodness of God. **As a reminder: the comments below that are italicized and black are what I've written today looking back at this. 

December 4, 2001
Letter #6: Much to Be Thankful For

Dear Family and Friends,
December is here and it is still 80 degrees during the day in Beaufort.  I long for a reason to drink hot chocolate and wear thick, warm sweaters.  But that doesn't seem to be in the forecast any time soon.  It looks to be another warm-weather Christmas for us.  Last time I wrote you, I said that life had been pretty difficult lately.  I wish that I could report an improvement over the last month and a half, but that isn't the case by any stretch of the imagination.

My seminar was great except that the schedule made if very difficult on me physically; although I am happy to report that I passed all my tests and even got a 93 on the final exam!  When I returned home afterward, I was very exhausted and spent most of the day Monday sleeping to recover.  Tuesday rolled around and I headed to Charleston for my treatment.  That Tuesday was the beginning of what has been the most difficult four weeks of my pregnancy yet.  After my treatment that night, I spiked a 102 degree fever from out of nowhere.  The obstetrician on call at my OB office told me that I probably just had the flu and needed to take some Tylenol and rest.  The Tylenol broke my fever and I went to bed early.  I developed no other symptoms of the flu and neither did anyone in my household.  I did, however, keep having fevers every couple of days for seemingly no reason.

The obstetricians spent the next two weeks trying to track down the cause of my fevers.  They drew my blood several times and tested me for everything from HIV to Tuberculosis.  I had no signs of infection in any part of my body and the baby was doing great so my doctor's weren't very concerned.  That is, until the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving night I ran a temperature of 101 degrees, which didn't bother me much becuase I had been having fevers like that on and off for weeks.  However, this time the fever came back every day.  Monday afternoon I went in to see my obstetrician again after having had a temperature between 99.5 degrees and 101.5 degrees for five days.  They drew blood to test me for some other rare diseases and infections. I  was given a thorough examination and, again, no other signs of illness were found.  Stumped, my doctor told me not to worry about it and, unless the blood tests turned up anything, they would see me in a week.  The next day, I was at the clinic waitting to start my treatment when Dr. Abud told me that I would have to go over to the hospital and be admitted.  Well, obviously, this was quite a shock and it would be a couple hours before I would find out what was going on.

After being escorted over to Labor and Delivery, I waited for my obstetrician to come tell me why I was being admitted.  Finally, Dr. Mulden showed up.  She is the OB I had seen the day before who had scheduled to see me back in a week.  She looked worried.  Dr. Mulden explained that she had looked over all my previous labs and the results from the ones I had done the day before.  She noticed that with each set of blood work my platelet, hemoglobin, and white cell counts were falling.  So, they were admitting me to the hospital until they could get a hematologist consult to try to find out what was causing it. One hematologist showed up that afternoon and explained again that my platelet, hemoglobin, and white cell counts were fallling.  He told me they would do more blood tests and see me the next afternoon.

The next afternoon - the Wednesday after Thanksgiving - four hematologists came to my room and spoke with me for about 3 minutes.  They explained that people don't usually have problems with platelets, hemoglobin, and white blood cells all at the same time.  A virus, for instance, may cause havoc with one or another, but not all three.  So their theory was that the problem was in my bone marrow (which is where those things are made).  After our brief conversation, they left and told me they would see me the next day.

The next morning, one of the doctors came to see me at about 10:30.  He explained that at their staff meeting that morning, all the hematologists were discussing my case.  They unanimously agreed that the next step was to do a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy.  I was not too thrilled at the sound of that, to say the least!  What was worse, they scheduled it for 11am - less than a half hour from that moment.  He left the room and I rushed to make phone calls to my husband other family to let them know what was going on.

I went through sixteen hours of un-medicated labor with my first child and, I have to say, would choose that over a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy any day.  The procedure was, by far, the most painful experience of my life - endured with only the comfort of strangers (and the Lord.  Russ was working about 2 hours from where I was so there was no way he could have gotten there.  There were actually many strangers in my room during the procedure - I was in a teaching hospital and in the 25 minutes beforehand I had 7 or 8 residents and/or interns come ask my permission to watch.  They took their samples from the area of my pelvic bone near the Sacroiliac joint. I still periodically have pain in that spot, often coming and going with certain weather conditions.) Fortunately though, it allowed the doctors to rule out a number of other potential causes of bone marrow suppression, including Leukemia.  After having had countless blood tests and the bone marrow biopsy and aspiration in the hospital, the doctors were still stumped.  Strangely, from the time I went into the hospital, I felt better than I had in months and did not have one fever.  To me, it was more than a coincidence that my fevers stopped and my platelet, hemoglobin, and white cell counts began to come back up when I did not have my treatment for the week.  However, the hematologist in charge of my treatments denies that the IVIG could cause the types of problems I was having. For now, everyone has labeled my fevers and dropping blood counts a fluke of pregnancy and taken a "wait and see" attitude.  My obstetricians gave me one more week off of my treatment, and I will begin again on December 11th.

By now I suppose you are wondering why I would title this letter "Much to Be Thankful For."  Indeed, this pregnancy - especially in the last month - is proving to be one of the greatest challenges of my life.  Russ has also been deeply affected by these difficult events.  Some days it is hard to see anything worth celebrating and thanking God for.  However, there is much to be thankful for even in the midst of our suffering.  The health of my daughter and my husband comes to mind, as well as the knowledge of all the various infections and diseases that I do not have.  In the midst of all my physical problems, our unborn son is still thriving, and getting ready to make his entry into the world. Speaking of entries into the world, my best friend recently delivered a big, healthy baby girl at 41 weeks after being threatened with pre-term labor and on best rest most of her third trimester.  That is definately something to be thankful for.  I also think about how God is allowing the pieces to fall into place so that we can move back to Maryland next year and once again be close to our family and dearest friends.

We live in a county where prosperity abounds, even in the midst of a slow economy.  And often, when I can't seem to see past my problems, I think of all the little things that we take for granted.  We have a roof over our heads, food in our pantry, and clean clothes on our backs - which is more than many people in this world could ever hope for.  Oh, there is so much to be thankful for.  We just need to take the time to stop and think about it.  For us personally, it means taking our heads out of the hole of self-pity we like to stick them in.  It means trusting God even when we can't see the end of the valley He is bringing us through.

...up next - An End and a Beginning