I had my first physical therapy appointment yesterday. It is part of the grand plan of baby making. Lose weight, get healthy, increase IQ points, go blond. OK, those last two didn't actually happen and I didn't get taller either. But I did decide to improve my bad back, so in the last year I have lost 53 pounds and am working on getting back to my high school weight. My goal is to be as healthy as possible by the time I do the donor egg transfer in the spring of 2009. My back is in horrible shape, however, I am incredibly flexible due to my connective tissue disorder. My core muscles are very weak so off I went to the physical therapist.
When I arrived I was immediately put off as the room was filled with angels and Christian literature was spread everywhere. I am a liberal, so much so that I believe that the only place that God should be is in church. So seeing that he was so casually displayed everywhere was very uncomfortable. Then the receptionist was unhappy with the fact that I didn't have a copy of my insurance card. I had my driver's license and she had verified my insurance coverage via the insurance website. I offered to go online to download a copy of the card for her but she said no, she had to copy the actual card for her files. Now, I don't do well with blind obedience to stupid rules so I was a little tense. I finally explained that I had given my card to my daughter who was going to Denmark for 6 weeks to teach minority children. She automatically assumed that she was on a church mission and was about to ask which church when someone came in and asked for the physical therapist.
While I filled out paperwork I was treated to 10 minutes of testifying to the Lord and His glory and the wonders of His prison ministry. It was all I could do not to jump up like a rabbit and run out of there. By the time they were done with their discussion my eyelid was twitching and I felt the need to sing a hymn, if only in self preservation. I was raised a Methodist and I knew the first question would be "Where is your church home?" Sometimes it is good to lie, as we are now heathens, and I just there just to strengthen my back.
Fortunately, she was very professional and started the evaluation. She was also knowledgeable about my connective tissue disorder having treated a father and daughter before. She was also training a young woman named Theresa, while she was doing my exam. I especially liked how she treated the young assistant, as to me that is always the sign of a decent human being, how you treat and teach someone who can't talk back to you.
Finally towards the end of my eval, once we had spent 30 minutes without any God talk and once my defenses were down, Janice the physical therapist asked me why I was so motivated to improve my core strength. So I told her. Oh God, I don't know why, maybe it was the pain meds I took earlier, maybe it was the massage or the light therapy or the traction or maybe the chocolate chip cookie that came from the prison kitchen (Don't ask), but I said, "well next year we hope to have a baby". "Of course we are too old so we will have to use donor eggs."
At which point the therapist became very excited and said that she knew a couple that built their family that way "THROUGH ADOPTED EGGS " and they were so blessed and had we started our paperwork yet and did we have all of our reference letters done? And she just babbled on, getting more excited by the moment and I began to get a really bad feeling about the whole conversation, especially when she starting talking about saving those embryos from research and from being discarded and that life begins at conception. She was just spinning herself into a frenzy and Theresa was trying not to laugh and we were just looking at each other and my eye was starting to twitch. Janice looked up all sorts of info and links while I swore Theresa to secrecy and then I gathered up my stuff and I slunk out of there.
Not being familiar with the mysteries of artificial reproduction, when I said donor eggs, Janice heard donor embryos. This is what Janice is talking about, an option I didn't even know existed. However, I have to say that my heathen lifestyle pretty much excludes us from consideration, because you know we don't have a church home. But for those of you that do, it may be worth a look.
http://www.nightlight.org/snowflakeadoption.htm
Theresa called today and told me that my insurance has okayed me for 2 appointments a week for the next 6 weeks and then they will reassess. She also told me that Janice has been moved to add me to their daily prayers when they open the shop. I am not sure I can ever show my face there again.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
My First Post
My first post. I guess it should be something profound, but I will settle for explaining the title of my blog. I have an inherited connective tissue disorder which I have passed onto my children. Of course, we weren't diagnosed until after they were born, and we were assured that the type we have was the benign type. There are nine varieties, and genetic testing is only available for two of the rarest.
Our plan to have one more child was derailed 10 years ago when I developed a serious sinus infection that needed to be treated with IV antibiotics. It required six weeks of therapy so I had an IV line placed in my right arm. I then developed a large blood clot in my right chest wall that went from my chest down to my right elbow. That year I was hospitalized eight times for recurrent blood clots and my plans for a baby went into permanent hiatus.
Since then my health has bounced back and forth with times of excellent health intermingled with periods of frequent hospitalizations. During these times the experts have postulated that my mild connective tissue disorder has been complicated by my chronic sinus infections and my allergy to latex. Both seem to have hopes of being conquered this year by my retirement from nursing and then by treatment from a new ear nose and throat doctor.
So finally we are ready for that last baby, the one we have waited so long for. But now we have waited too long. My eggs are old, so we will turn to donor eggs. A complication that doesn't thrill me, but makes sense, as I have no desire to pass this connective tissue disorder on to another child.
But this is where the failure of imagination comes in. That benign connective disorder that all the women in my family have? As well as most of the men? Well it doesn't seem to be so benign after all.
In my mom's sibling group of 5, three have had cancer, two have had fatal aneurysms and only one is alive at age 60. My uncle survived one abdominal aortic aneurysm dissection at age 45 only to have it recur and die at age 47.
At the time of my mom's death she had three large aneurysms in her brain, one the size of a walnut. So fragile, she would have bled to death had an attempt been made to operate. As it was, the largest one pressed on her brain stem and she simply stopped breathing, resulting in her death. One aunt died of colon cancer before 4o, my surviving aunt also had colon cancer before 40 but has survived so far. I have lost one cousin to cancer and I am the next to oldest of the cousins. So the idea that we have the not so fatal form of this disease? Likely not accurate.
My husband is a marathon runner whose parents are very healthy and whose paternal grandparents lived to be in their mid 90's so we expect that he will live for a very long time.
But we really had a failure of imagination when we thought that we could plan one last child late in our marriage, a child to travel with, maybe even spoil a little now that we would be older, more experienced parents. Even as we debate the wisdom of trying to conceive, I am readying my body for a pregnancy that may not happen. I am just not ready to give up a dream 27 years in the making.
Our plan to have one more child was derailed 10 years ago when I developed a serious sinus infection that needed to be treated with IV antibiotics. It required six weeks of therapy so I had an IV line placed in my right arm. I then developed a large blood clot in my right chest wall that went from my chest down to my right elbow. That year I was hospitalized eight times for recurrent blood clots and my plans for a baby went into permanent hiatus.
Since then my health has bounced back and forth with times of excellent health intermingled with periods of frequent hospitalizations. During these times the experts have postulated that my mild connective tissue disorder has been complicated by my chronic sinus infections and my allergy to latex. Both seem to have hopes of being conquered this year by my retirement from nursing and then by treatment from a new ear nose and throat doctor.
So finally we are ready for that last baby, the one we have waited so long for. But now we have waited too long. My eggs are old, so we will turn to donor eggs. A complication that doesn't thrill me, but makes sense, as I have no desire to pass this connective tissue disorder on to another child.
But this is where the failure of imagination comes in. That benign connective disorder that all the women in my family have? As well as most of the men? Well it doesn't seem to be so benign after all.
In my mom's sibling group of 5, three have had cancer, two have had fatal aneurysms and only one is alive at age 60. My uncle survived one abdominal aortic aneurysm dissection at age 45 only to have it recur and die at age 47.
At the time of my mom's death she had three large aneurysms in her brain, one the size of a walnut. So fragile, she would have bled to death had an attempt been made to operate. As it was, the largest one pressed on her brain stem and she simply stopped breathing, resulting in her death. One aunt died of colon cancer before 4o, my surviving aunt also had colon cancer before 40 but has survived so far. I have lost one cousin to cancer and I am the next to oldest of the cousins. So the idea that we have the not so fatal form of this disease? Likely not accurate.
My husband is a marathon runner whose parents are very healthy and whose paternal grandparents lived to be in their mid 90's so we expect that he will live for a very long time.
But we really had a failure of imagination when we thought that we could plan one last child late in our marriage, a child to travel with, maybe even spoil a little now that we would be older, more experienced parents. Even as we debate the wisdom of trying to conceive, I am readying my body for a pregnancy that may not happen. I am just not ready to give up a dream 27 years in the making.
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