Putting Pieces in Place

Ta-dah! This is the jigsaw puzzle my mom and I started on Christmas. It was a little more complicated--okay, a LOT more complicated-- than we'd expected it to be. Even putting the frame together was complicated (we had to re-do it several times). It was really tricky to figure out how pieces fit together. I love the end result, though.

But this blog entry really isn't about jigsaw puzzles (although you have to admit that it looks cool, right?). Let's say the jigsaw puzzle is my metaphor of the week. Why? Thought you'd never ask.

So for a while now-- probably since about Christmas, or maybe mid-January-- I've been feeling kinda tired. I figured it was just being overworked. Then, gradually, running's been getting harder to do. At first I'd just plain stop wanting to run after half a mile or so, but I'd gut my way through until I'd at least finished two miles. My motto has always been, "Anyone can find the energy to run two miles." Then, maybe a month and a half ago, my heart would really pound after a quarter of a mile. What in the world was going on?

I also noticed-- spoiler alert: reference to female issues coming-- that I was bleeding longer and heavier during my periods. I started to wonder if there was a connection, and I started to worry. Granted, I didn't worry enough to contact a doctor, but I worried. Then I figured I was being a hypochondriac.

Meanwhile, I kept getting promptings to contact a doctor SOON. I finally made an appointment, and the appointment was Tuesday morning. I had the exam, the nurse practitioner requested blood work (done by a technician who was on her FIRST DAY at the job-- a bit anxiety-causing, but she did a good job), and I went on my way. The nurse practitioner seemed very worried, but I felt fine.

Or so I thought. I came home in the late afternoon to a message to page the nurse practitioner. When I reached her, she said, "Your hemoglobin count is unusually low. Go to the ER right now and get a transfusion." Um, not what I was expecting. Turns out I needed four units of blood. For any medical readers out there, my hemoglobin count was 4.4. Normal is 12.

Here's where I have to pay tribute to a FABULOUS visiting teacher who had just gotten off her nursing shift at the hospital and had just decided NOT to attend her daughter's softball game when I called and told her what was going on. She dropped everything and spent several hours at the hospital with me, staying until I was settled in a room for the night (and returning to her own shift six hours later). She drove me to the hospital. She translated doctor talk into real people talk for me. She kept me calm during the pelvic ultrasound. She knew how to tie the hospital gown so I didn't flash anyone. She made me laugh. She talked me through possible options if it turned out to be what I thought it was (which it was). She told me that my tongue and lips really were white, and it wasn't until I got a unit of blood and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror that I believed her. Without her, I would have had to lie on an emergency room bed all by myself for hours, getting myself more and more scared. Instead, we laughed hard enough that I think we disturbed the patient in the next bed over (oops). By the time I was wheeled up to my room, my Relief Society president and one home teacher and his wife had joined the crowd, so I had a little parade up to the sixth floor.

So it turns out I have a uterine fibroid. I don't know how big it is, but it's been growing gradually. That explains the anemia, the fatigue, the low hemoglobin count. It's been so gradual that I haven't noticed I was losing color, or that my ankles were starting to swell (well, I noticed that occasionally, but I attributed to air travel because that's when I usually saw it). Pieces falling into place. The Spirit had been telling me something was wrong, and I had a hunch what it was, but I didn't know for sure. Now I know, and now I move on to treatment options (might be next week's blog).

Here's another piece that fell into place for me this week: while I was waiting for another unit of blood to get into my body, I read General Conference talks in my hospital bed. I don't remember what talk I read, but it mentioned the promise at the end of D&C 89 about the destroying angel passing you by if you kept the Word of Wisdom. I immediately felt the impression that I had lived that promise Tuesday night. The doctors who saw me were shocked that I was still alert and standing at my hemoglobin level. Apparently I could have had a stroke. (Who knew? Obviously not me.) I really feel that exercising and living the Word of Wisdom kept me healthy enough that my system could still keep functioning at a much lower level of blood supply. I feel loved and protected and incredibly grateful to be home and feeling good again. I don't know what's next, but I know it'll be okay. I'm living little bitty pieces of a much bigger, much more beautiful picture and it'll all work out.