Health...

Part of me wanting to share my experiences is because of some health problems that I have had to deal with this past year.

About a month after i gave birth to my daughter Hailey I started noticing that I was having a lot of pain when I tried to get up off the floor from playing with my kids. It was painful to lift my kids up and carry them, to walk up and down the stairs etc. I had a difficult time getting out of bed cause of the pain. The fatigue was getting to me as well. I was so tired all the time. I could get as much sleep as I could possibly want or need and still wake up and feel like I had not slept in days. I had zero muscle strength. I knew something was wrong and the pain was getting to be too much to handle.

I went to the doctor....the doctor told me that I was fine and that I just had too many kids too quickly and I was just experiencing depression. I didn't believe it. I KNEW something was wrong with me and no one was listening. I went through 6 doctors and FINALLY found one that listened and drew blood for the first time after nearly 6 months of trying to get a doctor to pay attention. Unfortunately the only thing that came back on my blood work was that I had low white cell count. It's a sign of cancer and with my other symptoms that was what my doctor thought he was looking for. For months and months they did tests and found NOTHING. I was getting really discouraged and the symptoms were just getting worse.

My friend told me about her friend who was experiencing something similar and it was discovered that she had melanoma cancer (which is hard to find) so I went to the dermatologist. They actually did find some cancer but it was small and they removed it all and it was not what was causing my problems. However, it was a huge blessing that it was found cause had it progressed and I would have had full blown cancer. The dermatologist suggested I see a rumatologist regarding arthritis. I was desperate and made an appointment. They ran XRAYs, MRIs, blood work, DEXA scans, etc

FINALLY an answer came! In the MRI they found that nearly every muscle in my body was covered with erosion. The erosion were eating away at my muscle and if it continued I would eventually be without any muscle and basically be paralyzed. It's called PSORIATIC ARTHRITIS. It goes hand in hand with a skin disorder called psoriasis (which I have had since I was a little girl).

Because it took so long to find what was wrong with me my case of this disease was pretty far along and I had to do some extensive treatments.

Currently I am doing a chemo injection shot called Methotrexate once a week and every 8 weeks I do a 3 hour IV treatment called Remicade. Along with these meds I am taking numerous amounts of others. My husband laughs at me when he sees me filling my pill case cause I have so many pills I can hardly close to tops.

The bad news I got recently was that this disease is something that has no cure. I will have to do chemo once a week and IV treatments every 8 weeks indefinitely....or until they find a new treatment or cure. For a year or two I will be doing harsh treatments that make me fairly ill and then they will bring the dose down to more of a maintaining basis.

So that's the health situation....