Shingles?

The morning after being diagnosed with shingles….

I woke up around 11 feeling very strange, it seemed that I was worse way worse. So I slid my legs out of the bed to go into the living room, I could hear the girls laughing and watching tv in the there so I knew that everyone must be awake. As soon as I got out of bed and began to walk, I knew immediately something was majorly wrong. I took a few steps and then plopped back down on to the bed. My legs were working. After a few minutes I finally made it to my bedroom door, got the door open and told the girls to get MeMe quick. MeMe came and held me tightly as I tried to walk. My right foot was kicking out, and I had no control over it. This is what they call drop foot. So she helped me get back into bed and I called my mom. She made me an appointment with her primary care physician, doctor Blessey, in Mobile for 2:00 that afternoon. As the day progressed I was getting worse and worse. My speech, legs, tongue, face, hands even going to the restroom was difficult because everything was numb. I decided to take a hot bath maybe it would relax me some. The girls, Hannah and Caroline helped me in the tub and sat in there with me until I was ready to get out. After getting out and brushing my wet hair, I noticed something in my head. Whatever it was it looked like a big raised blonde mole, which blended into my hair. It was located exactly where I part my hair. Once again I told the girls to go get MeMe. She came in and took one look at my head and said it’s a tick. A TICK??????? How in the world did I get a tick in my head? She grabbed some tweezers and pulled it out. YUCK RIGHT!!!

By now we had decided we needed to get to the doctor ASAP. So, I just threw on some clothes and we headed to Mobile. Mom met us at the hospital, and took us straight back into a room. Dr. Blessey came in and observed me. He looked at my head and also the tick that my grandmother insisted on keeping. With no hesitation he admitted me into the hospital. Once in a room they started me on pain medicine and strong antibiotics by IV. Late that night around 10:00 the infectious disease doctor came in, he checked me out and said he thought all my symptoms were caused from my medicine, Tacrolimus, this is the medicine I was taking for my hives. The way he explained it was… It’s like getting a flat tire and running out of gas at the same time.  Two things that happened simultaneously but that aren’t related to each other in any way. Well this is just great, we thought that we knew what was going on but we were wrong. The next morning my symptoms were almost all gone. The neurologist came in and had me do some test, to check my physical and motor skills. He seemed to think everything was good and id be ready to go home that afternoon. The infectious disease doctor came back in after the neurologist and was in shock how much my symptoms had gone away. This changed his mind on my diagnosis. He seemed to think I could also go home that afternoon. Only one more doctor to see before I could be released, it’s now Saturday and my doctor, blessey, wasn’t on call so the doctor who is in with him, Dr. Becker is whom we were waiting on.  He came in and said everything looked better and that I could go home. They sent me home with lots of antibiotics and some cream to put on my bite.

The following week, the infectious disease doctor found mom in the hospital and told her he had been researching and my tick had to be a female wood tick that was pregnant to cause the damage it did. Til this day we still have no clue how I got in and how long it had been there. If you didn’t think the hives were crazy enough, now the tick, my life couldn’t get much crazier. Knock on wood

:Pictures from that weekend:

Gulf State park on fire

Stay true to you and to God and anything is possible!

BEACH BOUND

After debating on going back to school and what is was I wanted to do with my life, I one day just decided I’d leave it up to God. Whatever it was that I was meant to do well it would come along. There was no point in me stressing over something that was beyond my control. After the baby shower and lots of wondering… I received the phone call that changed it all. This call was from Anita. Anita is one of my mom’s closest friends; she opened up her own real estate company in December of last year and needed an assistant. This may not be the career path I wanted to go down but at least it was a start to some great experience. After the fashion design/ merchandising had failed… Event planning/ Wedding planning was looking great to me. I talked with mom and Anita, we all came to the conclusion that it was time to move further south… ORANGE BEACH ALABAMA. So, Fathers Day weekend mom and I moved to Orange Beach. No one really had to convince me too much on moving to the beach J . Who doesn’t want to live by the water? This move took all of 3 days, and then I headed back home for some unfinished business, my puppy Lucy, and more shoes!!!! That following Wednesday… My MeMe, Cousins Hannah and Caroline were suppose to head back to the beach for a fun week before they started back to school very soon.

That Wednesday morning I woke up with a strange feeling in the right side of my head. The only way I can explain it is to tell you… it felt like I had a trip to the dentist and they had numbed my right side of my head. While I was taking this Tacrolimus medicine, I had a few strange things happen so this didn’t seem like anything to worry about. By the end of the Wednesday, not only was my head numb but also now my lips, tongue, and ear were all numb. Well… It’s too late to call the doctor now, so I would just deal with it until I could get in touch with him the next day. Thursday came and my hands were not numb with the rest of my body. I called the doctor and waited for a response. By 3:00, I hadn’t heard anything back so I called again. This time I got his nurse, who told me to stop my Tacrolimus and go see my primary care physician asap, if these symptoms persisted I would need to see a neurologist Monday. WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS GOING ON????

My first reaction is to call Mom, She told me to head to Foley to the ER. Now I am really freaking out.   Countless hours of waiting and they called me back, once in the room it didn’t take long for the doctor to come in and examine me. She literally dug through my head so much I joked that she was checking me for lice. Her conclusion to all my symptoms was that it was the shingles. The shingles could have been brought on by my weakened immune system. Well GREAT!!!!! She gave me medicine to stop the shingles and for the pain they were about to start causing me. We thought this was an okay conclusion and went home to eat dinner and go to the movie. Nothing felt any stranger than it had been, I had even started taking the pain meds just incase. That next morning is when it all hit me! 

Aubree Elizabeth Baby Shower

My very best friend is having a baby… So what else would I do but, plan her baby shower. It turned out to be way more than I had even imagined! 

Happy Birthday to me!

It now being April meant, I was 35 pounds heavier, one year older, and still working with the Tacrolimus. So Happy Birthday to me, the medicine was actually working. The medicine didn’t cure me or stop the hives but it did lessen the severity of the episodes. I continued to make the drive to Tuscaloosa once a week for work ups. This lasted for almost one solid month… until I had an abnormal EKG. This meant the doctor would stop my medicine until he figured out the real reason for the abnormal EKG. A few days later it ended up being nothing more than an elevated heart rate so I could start my medicine back. YAY! This also meant that I would now be leaving DCH where I received my EKGs and only going to the office of the cardiologist. Her name was Dr. Kamal. My Monday’s were now spent going to Dr. Dishuck for blood pressure check, receiving orders for blood work up, going to Kamal for EKG, and then headed to DCH for blood work! This seems like it would have taken hours but, I had it down pat and could scoot around to those places like it was my job. The hives came and went but for the most part I was hive free. I call that manageable

TACROLIMUS

5 days after returning to Alabama… I visited Doctor Dishuck once more! He walked in with a confused look on his face. I told him all about our visit to Mayo… Why we went to Mayo and also why Dr. Bonner didn’t work for me. He asked for the records of my visit and what I wanted to do next. Wasn’t that his decision? I definitely didn’t go to school to be a doctor. I told him how I was ready to do something drastic… I could live this way anymore. He said when do you need to start back school? I responded by saying in the fall. His answer was OKAY! And he leaves the room. Dr. Dishuck came back in to give me what he suggested was the best option.

TACROLIMUS- http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/733090 here is an article like the one he handed me. The other thing was I needed to have an EKG and extensive blood work to make sure I could even start the medicine. My heart and blood work had to be at a good level. I headed home to my primary care physician to have all this done…

They hooked me up to the machine and it was done. Now just time to wait for it to be read… a week went by with no news! Knowing the ladies at the office I gave them a call, for them to only ignore my calls for days. I thought it was time to call in the big guns… MOM!!!! She gave them a call and figured out… They lost my chart, sent my EKG to the wrong doctor and had no idea what to do next. I love those ladies very much but this couldn’t happen right now I needed it to start my medicine. Almost 3 weeks went by before we heard any news… It would have been 2 but Tuscaloosa was hit HARD by a tornado, the place was destroyed. I heard back from the doctor when they regained power.  By now they had received my EKG and blood work and it was time to start TACROLIMUS> a little about the drug! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000103/

This is enough to scare you to death, which is the way my family felt. But, if it helped I was willing to try anything!!!!!

Doctor Dishuck let me know very quickly starting this medicine meant I would have to drive to Tuscaloosa once a week every week to get blood work and an EKG and to also check my blood pressure. These were all things that if there were a change I would have to stop the medicine immediately. So… Every Monday I made the drive to Tuscaloosa. 

"If you know where you are going, any road will get you there" Lewis Carroll