My PCOS Journey Pt 4

If you remember when I started this series (You're not binge reading, are you? You've got some crumbs...), we've not achieved baby as of today. So I hope you weren't too excited where we left off last time.

At the cusp of maybe baby time, life, yet again, happens. Or almost ends. This period marks a series of ends and reboots in our lives. By this point in our slowly winding story (three hour tour...) our TTC journey is nearing the decade point, not that it may seem that way when summed up across a few (ha!) posts, but true. I've bought books, I've skimmed endless message boards, I've googled and yahooed til I couldn't see straight.

As randomly as I seemed to begin ovulating, I stopped. I took a break from charting. I stopped peeing on ovulation test sticks. Every pregnancy test stick had the same result I'd ever gotten: no baby for you.

And then one day my dad, who hadn't been feeling all that great but not all that bad, came home from work because he couldn't catch his breath. Something didn't sit well with me, so we called the doctor and they had him come in.

I should mention, I'm already a little extra cautious about my dad because he'd been recently (within the previous year or two) hospitalized because a doctor prescribed something that interfered with a different prescription and it didn't get caught until his primary doctor was reviewing his chart while I drove my dad to the ER. My father had also just recovered from joint replacement from the previous year and is still working on the last bit of physical therapy/strengthening when he isn't feeling like himself.

At the doctor's office, we're there less than five minutes before being told he's got to go to the ER right away. His oxygen levels are low enough that whatever is happening is very serious. I could see the hospital from the doctor's office, but they almost called the ambulance to come take him because of how concerned they were. There are a lot of things in life I can talk very matter of fact about that might give others pause. This is not one of them. To this day, the memories of this, the understanding of what might have been jolt me to my core and scare the daylights out of me.

The doctor called ahead to the ER as we drove the hot second across the street. We skipped triage and were taken straight back to the rooms directly at the nurses' station, where all the supplies and devices are within reach. Ultimately, my father had pulmonary embolisms. Several of them. Blood clots in his lungs, blocking the lung arteries and/or the branches of the arteries. At least one had broken loose and gone through my dad's heart. There is some debate between two cardiologists as to whether or not he then had a heart attack, but as the senior cardiologist (who said he did not) told my dad, if there was a heart attack, your heart has absolutely no damage in anyway and it doesn't matter. He had those clots, as we found out after he was discharged and being tested, because of a genetic clotting mutation that is hereditary. Following his long recovery from the joint surgery, he ended up with what kept being referred to as a nursery in his leg that was producing and then throwing the clots. A daily blood thinner, and he's supposed to be clot free, which has its own unique issues and dangers.

Somewhere in the midst of this, another medical issue of mine had become diagnosed. Another story for another day, but my dad's joint issues are also hereditary. You mean your joints don't swell and contract and hurt like the bone's broken? You don't get random fevers for no reason? You don't spend days and weeks dropping anything and everything in your hands, to the point you nervously skirt by any bit of breakables you come across when you're in a store or at someone's house? It doesn't take you twenty, thirty, forty minutes or more just maneuver yourself out of bed and be able to stand up on your own? That's so weird, because I just figured everybody had wackadoo crap going wrong with them by the time they're 30.

After all this, I returned to my endo with my weight creeping back up. No changes in diet, no changes in exercise, taking my meds. Don't forget, one of the new pills I was taking caused weight gain even though it helped the rest of my symptoms. My blood work was stellar. Frame worthy. I was doing exactly what I was supposed to. I told her about my dad, and how eventually I'd need to be tested for this genetic mutation. I told her about my recent other diagnosis. Her face fell, she looked at me and told me to adopt. She was concerned I might not survive giving birth if I was able to conceive. It was a blow I was not expecting. Obviously, conception as well as pregnancy health, labor and delivery were not her specialty. But as a medical doctor who had the most knowledge so far, I can still feel her words in my chest, in the pit of my stomach years later.

To be continued...