In two and a half short hours, I will
be sitting in the office of the Maternal Fetal Specialist. To say I'm
nervous and anxious would be an understatement. I'm trying to stay as
calm as possible and not worry too much about it but I feel like this
doctor holds a lot of power right now. He has the power to
essentially prevent me from being able to use the birth center I want
to use. Now, I realize this is far from the end of the world, but I
want so much for things to be easy for once.
So much of my life over the past 15
years has been focused on medical...stuff. Going to doctors, taking
pills, hooking up IVs, dealing with side effects of medications,
spending time in the hospital because of complications, having new
central lines placed or old ones removed, and much more time than I
would like spent in bed or on the couch either in pain or so fatigued
that just getting up to go to the bathroom is a huge task. After so
many years of all of this (half my life at this point), I have
managed to get to a point where so much of that is reduced.
Yes, I still go to doctors but as of
right now I only have one doctor that I see (she serves as both my
primary care physician and my Lyme disease doctor or “LLMD” -
Lyme Literate Medical Doctor). I still take pills, more than I would
like, once I week I spend 20-30 minutes filling up my weekly pill
containers, multiple times a month I have to pick up refills, and I
always have to remember to carry around my large container of my
daily pills, but this is not so bad and I'm used to it. I still do IV
medications but they are greatly reduced and I have somehow managed
to get to a point of being able to only infuse them every other day
which is AMAZING. I'm not on any medications right now that cause
noticible side effects and those nights spent curled up on the
bathroom floor because it was too much to go back to bed knowing I
would likely be throwing up again soon are a (somewhat) distant
memory. In less than two months it will have been a year since my
last hospitalization but because of my port-a-cath (central line IV
access) there is always a risk of infection or other complications.
As of right now my port-a-cath is working well. And my time spent
resting in bed or on the couch is greatly reduced, most of the time
it's just because I need a break and not because of the crushing
fatigue or pain that I used to have regularly.
But the point is that I have come so
far and managed to claw my way back to something that resembles a
normal life. This is something that for so many years seemed just
like a distant dream that may not ever come true. But here I am,
proof that it CAN and DOES happen. It can take time and perseverance
and a lot of years of treatment, but it can happen.
And now I'm married – something that
didn't seem likely to happen because who would want this kind of
baggage? And I'm looking parenthood straight in the eye and more
excited than I can even explain.
So, back to the point of this post –
I'm nervous about the appointment this afternoon. Now that I am
getting my life back, I want the choices that so many people take for
granted. I wish so much that it could be easy and I could just decide
I want to use the birth center and that would be that. But I should
know that things aren't easy with chronic illness, especially when it
involves a central line and so many years of doctors and medications.
There are so many unknowns and we don't really have a good idea of
how my body will be able to handle pregnancy. But regardless of any
of this and regardless of what the doctor says today, I know I will
have a baby one way or another. It may not be the way I imagine it,
and I am trying to be okay with that, because I want this to happen
however it needs to happen.
I'm sure I'll be writing more after the
appointment, which is now only two hours away. Time to get things
together and prepare myself as much as I can. I just hate going to
new doctors and the unknown of how they will react to all of this. Ah
well, life is full of unknowns...
