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

Mayo Clinic

We left the 15^th of April on a direct flight from Birmingham traveling to Jacksonville Florida. MeMe and I arrived in Jacksonville, Took a black car to the hotel, which was about 30 minutes from the airport. Really…what was the point in renting a car when we would only be there for a couple of days? The hotel was located on the Mayo Clinic campus, so we walked wherever we needed to go. At this time we hadn't even booked a flight back because in all honesty we had no idea when we would be back. In our minds we would do whatever it took at this point to get me well. The first day we spent lounging and making sure we knew where we had to be at all times. At the Mayo Clinic they go by a strict schedule.

The next day started off at the allergy nurse, we arrived a little too early which only meant more wait time. Once the allergy nurse called me back, she began to ask an array of questions. These ranged from family history to recent history anything and everything she could fit in on 2 sheets of paper. Once she was done she sent me back out to the waiting area, to wait on Dr. Pongdee.

After an hour and a few snacks later, I was called back. Once entering the room, there stood a foreign man who introduced himself as Dr. Pongdee. Can you imagine the looks on our faces? We thought we were entering another room to wait on the doctor again. WRONG!

It began there… More questions!

Dr. Pongdee glanced over dozens of my photos… he also looked over my body at the hives I had that day. We discussed a few serious treatment options. In his opinion we had exhausted all other options, besides starting high-risk medications. He also suggested I get set up with dermatology to get a biopsy, just incase it was something other than “normal” hives. By the end of our appointment he had written orders for an array of blood work ups, he had researched doctor Dishuck… who would be the one monitoring my progress on the medicine and he said also he would check in on me occasionally. He sent over orders to Doctor Dishuck, as to what medications he suggested. This also all relied on what the biopsy reveled. Dr. Pongdee walked me and my grandmother out to the check out counter, he reassured us we would figure this out and helped us get in with Dermatology, FOR THE NEXT DAY.  By now we were feeling great about the situation, so we headed to the lab and got my blood work done. After that, we headed back to the hotel, put on our swimsuits and headed to the pool. This day was turning out to be the best in months. By an hour, my legs were covered in hives, this made for an awful day in the sun. We headed back up to the room and I crawled in bed for hours. These are my legs for that day/ night…

Once I woke up, it was so late I just went back to sleep. The next morning seemed to have come early. This was the day we saw dermatology. So, we headed over to the Mayo Clinic and waited for the doctor. Dr. Kelly came in to see me, we chatted just like with Pongdee the day before. We discussed the possibility of a biopsy, and I gave her my photos. She took those photos and said she’d be right back. Once she came back she had 4 other doctors with her, and somehow on this day I looked pretty normal. One doctor said, “we had to come look at you, but you don’t look like these photos” HAHA! Was that some kind of cruel joke? We all agreed to the biopsy, so they began to prepare for it right away. She numbed my ankle where there was a large hive and I didn’t feel a thing, but there were stitches. That I removed myself within the next two weeks… Not the best decision I’ve ever made. Now we were done at mayo? Yes! Now it was just time to wait for results. Once we were done at the clinic I called to schedule an appointment with Doctor Dishuck for when I returned to Alabama.

"Don't criticize what you don't understand"