Hopelessness

It's been a horrible week. It seems like everything has gone wrong, and I just can't pull myself out of this funk of grumpiness and negativity. I'll probably complain a lot in this post, but I can't be Ms. Look-on-the-Bright-Side all the time. Sometimes I just need to vent and get my frustrations out there.

First, let's start with the cold I've had all week. When we got back from San Diego, Brandon got a sinus infection. We thought it was from allergies, but apparently not since the day after he left I came down with horribly congested sinuses and watery eyes and a foggy head. That progressed into a sore throat, popping ears, and a scratchy, manly voice. The first few nights I couldn't sleep more than a few hours because I couldn't breathe, then the next few nights I couldn't seem to sleep enough. Even 14 hours of solid sleep didn't stop me from being tired and out of it. Physical therapy was basically a waste this week too since I was too sick and run down to do any of the exercises. I still got to work with Sabrina on some stuff, but I didn't do much physical work. Since we were on our honeymoon the week before, that's now two weeks that I haven't done my exercises, and I feel really behind. Plus, I didn't get to join the gym this week like I planned.

To go along with my cold, I've had these super swollen, painful joints in my fingers. I thought maybe I was sleeping on my hands weird, but it's been happening for about a month, and it seems to be the same joints on both hands. Certain fingers will hurt really bad for several days, then as they start to get better, other fingers will flare up. At the end of this week, my right index finger was so swollen and hurt so bad that I couldn't bend it, and even just touching the skin made me cringe. I asked Dr. Lasko, my pain management doctor, about it when I saw him on Thursday, but his best suggestion was to make an appointment with my GP and get some blood work for arthritis. I was fairly certain I had developed rheumatoid arthritis, which Dr. Lasko said would be entirely possible after all I've been through, but I woke up this morning and my fingers feel fine. I have an appointment with my GP tomorrow morning, but now I feel stupid going in because none of my joints are swollen or hurting. I really have no idea what's going on with my body lately.

That brings us to my reiki class on Saturday. I was SO excited about this class. It felt like something I really needed in my life and something that would be good for my healing. The class was supposed to run from 10-6, but as I drove out into Red Rock away from town, I could feel the early signs of my stomach starting to back up. I tried my best to sit through the class, but after 2 hours of trying to listen and pay attention and participate while my stomach was bloating and cramping up on me, I decided I needed to leave. I drove myself to the ER since the only thing that seems to get me through those episodes is some fluids and pain meds. I didn't tell my mom I was going because Ed's birthday party was happening at our house around 3, and I knew if I told her where I was going she would have come to the hospital and missed the party. So I laid there in the ER by myself while they gave me fluids and morphine and took me to get a CT scan. I told the doctor that morphine doesn't work, and at the risk of sounding like a junkie, I asked her for dilaudid (which has worked in the past). She said she never gives dilaudid and that morphine works just fine, and I wanted to tell her that it might work fine for normal people, but I'm not a normal person, but I kept my mouth shut. After being there a little over 4 hours, I was sent home, which also made me mad because my pain wasn't under control. I didn't want to stay there overnight, but I also didn't want my trip to the ER to be a total waste, which it ended up being.

When I got home, Ed's party was still in full swing, so I tried to sneak up to my mom's room where I could lay down and shut the door. Of course several people stopped me say hi, not picking up on the cues that I was in no mood to talk. Eventually my mom followed me into her room and shut the door while I laid down on her bed. I told her I just wanted to be left alone. My stomach hurt, and I felt horrible about the whole day. I felt like a total failure for not being able to finish my reiki class, I felt like a loser for going to the ER only to be denied pain relief, and I felt like an antisocial jerk for ditching out of the party. The only thing to stop me from crying was to go to sleep, so that's what I did.

I woke up this morning not feeling much better. My stomach recovered enough that I could actually eat breakfast, but my mental state was still in the dumps. I decided I just wanted to stay in my pajamas in bed, so I started reading, and I just finished my book, which of course made me cry and wish for a life I can't have right now. It's after 4pm, and I still don't feel like I can handle doing anything productive today, so now I'm here writing this post.

I feel like I've been overcome with this cloud of hopelessness. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about my stomach. Dr. Albright says to manage my symptoms for the next year until we can do surgery, but I can't live like this. I can't be going to the ER every 3 weeks or so and missing days of school all the time. I can't spend the next year of my life afraid of food and getting anxiety every time my stomach feels slightly off. But I also can't jump into surgery right now because I have to go back to school soon. I just don't know what to do. I feel like I'm stuck in this limbo where there's no way out. Everyone keeps telling me to take it one step at a time, which I've been trying to do, but right now I don't know which direction to walk. I want to just curl up in a ball on the bed and not move for forever. I feel like my body is betraying me and stopping me from having a life. I feel trapped in this dysfunctional unit of skin and bones and organs, and if this is what my life is going to be like, I don't want it. I'm sick of people saying stuff like, "You know, you could have it a whole lot worse." I just want to yell at those people and say, "Yeah, well I could have it a hell of a lot better too!" We live in a society obsessed with equality where it's not ok to say that one person's life is better or worse than others. Well I say screw that. My life is way worse than a lot of people's. Sure, everyone has their struggles in life, but I would gladly trade mine for someone else's. I think I've experienced more pain and suffering in my 25 years than most people will in a lifetime. My mom always tries to tell me she understands what I'm going through and that her life has been affected too and she's hurting just like I am, but in truth, no one knows what I'm going through. I know it's not easy losing one daughter and having the other be sick like I am, but it's not the same kind of hard that I'm dealing with. She also seems to forget that she's not the only one dealing with the loss of Karli. Just because I don't show my grief the same way she does, it doesn't mean I'm not hurting over her. Honestly, I'm jealous of her. She got to take the easy way out. She had the same disease I do, but she didn't have to deal with any of the consequences. She's happy and care-free on the other side, and I'm stuck here with all the pain and suffering and challenges and frustrations and anger that I feel every single day. Sometimes I feel like the doctors were wrong in saving my life, that my journey here wasn't meant to continue. If I lived several decades ago, we wouldn't have had the technology we do now, and I probably would have died. My family and friends would grieve for me, but eventually they'd learn to live with it, and I wouldn't be stuck on this earth suffering every single day.

I'm sorry for being so depressing. I usually try my best to be positive and find the silver lining, but some days I just can't do that. I would give anything to lace up my New Balances and go for a run along the river or to load up my backpack and take off into the forest with Brandon and the dogs for a few days. But I can't. My body won't let me. I get tired just walking up the stairs these days. You know how when you total your car, your insurance gives you money to buy a new one? Well, I think if you "total" your body, you should get to pick out a new one. There should be a catalog of bodies, and you should get to pick out the best "model" to suit the needs of your lifestyle, just like you would with a car at a car lot. That would be the best gift I could receive right now.

The last thing I wanted to say is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry to my friends, especially Amanda, for not being around lately. I'm sorry to Denise, the wonderful leader of the reiki class, for having to bail out early. I'm sorry to my mom for being so crabby lately. I'm sorry to Brandon for having a wife that sucks and can't do anything. And I'm sorry to my dogs for not being able to be a good "dog mom."

Now for one closing thought... not being able to eat strawberries is its own special form of hell.

Honeymooners & Shamanism

I'm feeling really grumpy and antisocial today, so I decided to lock myself in a room where I don't have to deal with people, and they don't have to deal with me. While I'm locked in here, what better way to pass the time than to update my blog! Plus, maybe it'll make me feel better to get some stuff on paper... er, on screen.

Honeymoon!

Brandon and I got back from our miniature honeymoon, or mini moon, Friday morning, and it was awesome! Despite a few hiccups and "learning experiences," we had a really good time, and it was nice to get out of town together. Neither of us had been to San Diego as adults, so it was really cool to explore the city and try their food and be tourists for a while. Here's what we did:

Monday:
Well, Monday was kind of a wash. We flew in to SD early in the morning and shuttled over to get our rental car. We had an economy car reserved, but the guy at the counter talked us into upgrading. It wasn't a hard sell considering we were upgraded to a Mustang convertible! Who doesn't want to cruise around Southern California in a convertible?! Well, the car ended up costing twice as much as we expected, not because of the upgrade, but because we're young and naive and it's California. Learning experience #1: you don't need to buy insurance for a rental car if your own insurance already covers you. Learning experience #2: Never have the rental car place fill up the gas tank for you. Always do it yourself. Learning experience #3: California taxes you up the ass for everything. Seriously, who has heard of a tourism tax?

After getting our car, we ventured downtown to find our hotel that we booked through Groupon called the Declan Suites. It was this fancy hotel in a high rise building right on the edge of the Gaslamp Quarter in downtown. Since we were feeling fancy, we decided to valet our car for the night. Learning experience #4: Never pay $35/night + tip to valet your car. We went up to the 12th floor where the lobby was to check in to our room. Learning experience #5: When you book a hotel online, make sure you book it for the correct month. That's right, we accidentally booked our room for February instead of March, which was probably the biggest hiccup of the entire trip. After spending an hour on hold with Groupon, Brandon was finally able to talk to someone, and she basically read him the fine print and said sorry, not our problem. So, we were out $400 right off the bat. Not a good start. We pleaded with the hotel to help us out a little, playing the honeymoon card to hopefully win their sympathy. The best they could do for us was to give us the room for $79/night, a little less than half off. We grudgingly accepted the price, but only for two nights, deciding to move hotels for the second two nights. We finally got up to our room on the 25th floor, and I think the $79 was worth it. The room wasn't super fancy or anything, but it was a suite with a couch and a TV and a big fluffy bed with awesome pillows (that I considered stealing but Brandon wouldn't let me). We had a great view of downtown with a little glimpse of the ocean off to the side.

View from our room at the Declan

Next we headed out to explore a little and get some lunch. We went to a sandwich shop nearby that was supposed to be great since I still can't walk long distances. The sandwiches were good, but nothing to write home about. Something cool happened during our walk though. We were standing on a corner waiting to cross the street, and a green balloon floated over our heads. Neither of us saw where it came from, but it hovered over our heads for a minute then floated away. I knew Karli was there with us. (For her birthday we wrote messages to her on green balloons and released them as a group.) After lunch I started feeling really tired and crappy, so we went back to the room, and I ended up napping for a couple hours. When I woke up from my nap, my stomach was really bloated, and I knew from the feeling that I was blocked again. Learning experience #6: I can't eat nuts. They block my intestines and cause me to back up. I had eaten a bag of airplane peanuts earlier in the day, and I guarantee that was the culprit. So, I spent the rest of the evening crying in agony as my stomach cramped up and relaxed. The only thing I can do in that situation is to make myself throw up, so every few minutes I'd stick my fingers down my throat and try to make myself vomit. I was only able to get out a little bit at a time, but after a few hours I got enough out of my stomach to relax enough to fall asleep. It was a really crappy way to start to our honeymoon, but fortunately I woke up on Tuesday feeling much better, and now we know for sure I can't eat nuts. Poor Brandon... I hate that he has to deal with me when I get sick, but he does the best he can to help me out and make me feel comfortable. He is so sweet to me; I am unbelievably lucky to have found him and kept him. He deserves an award for best husband ever.

Tuesday:
Tuesday went much smoother than Monday did, thankfully. After finding some breakfast, we walked around downtown and found the Horton shopping mall. We were too early for the shops to be open, but mostly we just wanted to see the architecture anyway. It's a crazy mall! It looks likes something out of a Dr. Seuss story, with multi-colored buildings of different shapes and sizes stuck together in a seemingly random arrangement. It would be super easy to get lost in there. It was a lot colder than I expected, and my legs were getting tired, so we went back and grabbed the car.

Next we ventured over to Coronado Island. It was super fun to drive the 'Stang over the bridge with the top down. We didn't do much over there, mostly just drove past the shops and looked around from the car. We did stop at Silver Strand beach to get out of the car and see the ocean. It was pretty chilly, so we didn't stay long before heading back to the downtown area.

Driving over the bridge to Coronado Island 

Silver Strand beach on Coronado Island

We took ourselves on a driving tour of downtown and the Gaslamp Quarter, looking at the public library and the convention center and all the millions of restaurants. We saw on the map that we were near Petco Park, so we decided to drive by that too. Learning experience #7: Petco Park is not a giant dog park. It's the stadium where the Padres play. I know, I know, I'm an idiot. But clearly dogs are more important to me than sports. I think everyone knows that. Then we ended up at the Seaside Village at the Embarcadero. We didn't really know what it was, but we decided to park and explore. It was this cute little tourist trap of a shopping center with grassy hills overlooking the ocean and tons of cute little shops and a carousel. They also had the coolest trees I've ever seen there! I'm not sure what they were, but they were so pretty. We wandered in and out of kite shops and souvenir shops and candy shops, killing time before our whale watching excursion. We found the cutest little family of ducks with a mama and 6 little ducklings swimming in the artificial stream at the village. The babies would dive down to the bottom and grab a piece of food before bobbing back up to the surface. I think I took at least 12 pictures of them they were so adorable.

Public Library

Petco Park

Gaslamp Quarter

Cool trees @ Embarcadero

Mama duck with ducklings

Brandon @ Seaside Village

Then it was time for our whale watching trip, so we headed over to the marina where our boat was waiting, only getting lost a couple of times. There were a ton of people there already, and by the time we got in line, I realized I had dropped my sweater. Brandon ran around trying to find it, but it was nowhere to be seen. It was my favorite sweater, and I'm super bummed I lost it. Someone must have picked it up because there were only a few minutes between me losing it and Brandon looking for it. The result was that I was freezing of course, so Brandon let me wear his sweatshirt while he froze to death on the boat. Learning experience #8: If you're going on a boat in the Pacific Ocean in March, dress really warm. Despite it being cold, it was a really fun trip. We were on the boat for 3 hours, and we saw a pod a bottlenose dolphins as well as a group of 4 gray whales. They didn't breach for us, but we did get to see a couple flukes! I didn't take any pictures of the whales because I was too busy watching them.

On the whale watching boat

After whale watching, we were both starving, so we went back to downtown and found a restaurant called Barleymash. We didn't really know what it was, but it seemed popular, so we went in. I ended up getting bacon and blue cheese fries, and Brandon got mac n cheese with beef brisket. The food was pretty good, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I left kind of unsatisfied. We did get a free sample from the Ghirardelli store on our way back though, so that made up for it.

Wednesday:
Zoo day! Not surprisingly, this was my favorite day of the trip. We checked out of our room at the Declan and headed up to the zoo, driving through Balboa Park. We didn't have time to get out and wander around Balboa unfortunately, but the zoo was my priority. The weather was actually pretty nice, so I got to wear a tank top and get some sun on my arms. The zoo was amazing! We didn't know where to start, so we just started walking and found ourselves winding through tree-lined paths and aviaries with crazy exotic birds. We saw flamingos, scarlet ibis, okapis, gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, a jaguar, giraffes, a rhino, warthogs, red pandas, giant pandas, bears, antelope, and koalas, just to name a few. There was an adorable river otter swimming laps in one of the exhibits, doing barrel rolls in the water as he swam past. He was one of my favorites, along with the okapis and the elephants, of course. The elephants were awesome. They had a mix of Asian and African elephants living together, and we got to watch two of the Asians playing in the water a little. I can't even explain how cool elephants are. I just love them to death. We walked around the zoo for probably 4 hours, and my feet and legs were killing me. We decided to hop on one of the buses so we didn't have to walk so much, and we took the SkyFari air tram across the zoo to see it from up above. We missed a couple parts of the zoo because my legs weren't holding up, but we got to see most of it, and I got the best workout I've had in a while. I wish my legs would've held up for one more hour so we could've seen the tigers and polar bears, but oh well, I did my best.

Elephant topiaries in front of the zoo

Asian elephants playing in the water

Me in front of the elephant care center

On the bus at the zoo

After the zoo, we went and checked in to our new hotel in the Point Loma part of the city. It was a strange little hotel, but our room was surprisingly nice. It had pretty much a full kitchen, and you could tell it was recently updated. The bed wasn't super comfortable, but it was livable. We went out to dinner at an Italian place close by called Pomodoro. I'm pretty sure it was fairly authentic since the 3 workers we had contact with spoke Italian and said things like "bon appetit" and "grazie." I needed some dessert after dinner, so we found a little bakery and got some pastries to share. We spent the evening eating dessert in bed while watching multiple episodes of Naked and Afraid on TV. It sounds simple, but it was so relaxing and enjoyable after a busy day at the zoo.

Thursday:
Thursday was our last day of vacation, so we tried to catch up on our exploring. We started off having breakfast at a cute little cafe in Mission Bay, followed by walking around the little amusement park. We thought about going on the Giant Dipper roller coaster, but we decided against it, opting instead to lay on the beach. It was just barely warm enough for swim suit weather, but if you laid on the sand out of the breeze, it was plenty warm. We stayed there for a couple hours, and I even put my bare feet in the sand and water! I thought it would hurt, but it actually felt kind of good. I wore a bikini for the first time, letting all my scars show. I didn't get many weird looks, so that was good. Brandon and I both ended up getting a little sunburned, so we got back in the car and headed up the coast a bit.

Mission Beach

 


We drove up to La Jolla and looked over the cliffs and at the shops along the street. I can't imagine how anyone can afford to live there. The houses there must have cost at least 3 million each, and that would be for the smallest one! We continued our drive up through Torrey Pines, which was a strange mix of UCSD buildings and dorms and super fancy houses. Again, I'm not sure how anyone affords to live there let alone go to college there. On our way back down, we stopped at an ice cream shop we had seen in Mission Bay called the Baked Bear. It was a create-your-own ice cream sandwich shop, where you could pick from any number of cookies and brownies and ice creams to create the perfect sandwich. Oh my god. So. Good. We need one of those places here in Reno. I got cookies n cream ice cream between a brownie and a chocolate chip cookie, and Brandon got strawberry cheesecake ice cream between a snickerdoodle and a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. I don't know which was better.

When we got back to the hotel, we digested our ice cream a little bit before heading out to our last dinner of our honeymoon. We weren't super hungry, but we wanted to have a grand finale of our vacation together, so we found a good seafood restaurant called the Brigantine. It was one of the best seafood restaurants I've ever been to, but it was quite pricey. I got too full to finish my dinner, which was unfortunate because it was so good I didn't want to leave any behind. At least we got to have a nice, romantic dinner together to end our honeymoon.

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Leaving the city on Friday was hectic. Our flight left at 6:15am, and we had to return the rental car, so we had to get up at 3:45 in the morning. It was miserable. To add to it, Brandon was getting sick with a sinus infection, so he was extra tired and crabby. Returning the rental car took forever, and none of the workers spoke English. We got to the airport around 5am, and everything took way longer than it should have. Learning experience #9: The San Diego airport is the most inefficient airport ever. The line at the Southwest counter was huge, security took forever because we had to be searched and they didn't have enough workers, the line at the bagel shop was about 40 people long, and getting my pre-boarding pass took about 15 minutes when it should have taken 2. But, we made it on our flight, and we got the front row to ourselves. We landed in Reno about 8am, and that was the end of our mini moon in San Diego.

Sunrise from the plane

I had a really great time in San Diego. Even though the city is super expensive, some of the outlying areas are more reasonable. I wouldn't mind living there at some point in my life. The weather is great, the ocean is right there, the plant life is incredible, and there's tons to do. Even if we had another week and an extra thousand dollars, I don't think we could've seen and done everything we wanted to. I guess we'll just have to go back another time!

Shamanism:

Switching gears a little bit from the honeymoon talk... yesterday my mom and I went to a little intro class on shamanism at a local yoga studio. If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm very interested in alternative practices and spirituality, or "voodoo" as my dad calls it. I didn't know much about shamanism, in fact I still don't know much about it, but the class was really interesting, and it made me want to learn more about it. The woman who led it was named Dr. Jeffre TallTrees (no, I don't know if that's her real last name), and she was a nurse turned psychologist turned shaman who has spent a lot of time in Peru learning about shamanism and practicing healing. I'm not going to tell you much about shamanism itself because I'm new to it myself, but I will tell you what I got out of the brief class we went to.

Jeffre said two things during the class that really stuck with me. The first thing she said was, "Evil only exists in the hearts of humans." This is something I've always known, but I just liked how she worded it. If you think about it, it's 100% true. Dirt and rocks aren't evil. Plants aren't evil. Animals aren't evil. Even if an animal does something that could be perceived as evil, such as killing another animal, they do it out of necessity to survive, not out of maliciousness. People are the source of evil, and that is one reason why I chose to work with animals over people. The second thing she said really helped me to understand and cope with a lot of the feelings I've been having towards school and being a veterinarian lately. I don't remember her exact words, but it was something along the lines of, "You do not have to be what your past dictates." I took this to mean that no matter what you have done or felt in the past, it doesn't mean you have to do or feel the same things in the future. In vet school, teachers and guest speakers are always pushing the students towards careers at high paced, high volume clinics and into specialties where you go to school for so many extra years to make so much extra money. They are constantly giving you ideas on how to increase your efficiency so you can see more patients per day and do more surgeries and bring in more clients and thus, more money. They want you to work 60 hours a week, seeing a new patient every 15 minutes. Well, what if I don't want to do that? Maybe that's what I wanted several years ago when I started vet school, but with this new life and new body that I've been given, I feel like I have to work less hours at a slower pace in order to be happy in my life. I'm not being lazy. My body and mind cannot handle that much stress and energy anymore. My system has taken such a hit that too much activity and multitasking overwhelms me. And that's ok. That's what I got from Jeffre. Just because I started vet school wanting to see a ton of animals and make a bunch of money, that doesn't mean that's what I have to do in the future.

In a previous post I mentioned that I was scared to go back to school, and this is why. I know what the teachers and doctors expect of the students, and it's very stressful and exhausting. I'm still nervous to go back, but at least now I understand that when I'm done with school, I can choose my own path. What if I want to only work 2 or 3 days a week? Fine. What if I get a job at a small, slow-paced clinic that doesn't see a ton of patients? That's ok. What if I don't make a bunch of money? Oh well. I'll still live a comfortable life. What if I want to stay home with my kids most of the time? Great. I can do these things. I don't have to fall into the lifestyle of working long hours and seeing emergencies every night and weekend. I might not have a ton of money, but oh well. I believe that whatever we need, life will give us, and my life will not be bad because I choose to lead a slower-paced, more relaxed lifestyle.

This revelation brought me to think about reiki. Reiki is basically using energy to heal, and it can be done in person or remotely. I've had several people perform reiki on me, and it's pretty incredible that you can actually feel their energy working on you. Reiki is typically practiced on humans, but I started to look into the world of reiki for animals, and guess what... it exists! I don't think it's very popular right now, but I believe that these alternative treatments are the way of the future when Western medicine is failing and people start turning to different modalities for answers. I did some extensive research on the internet about reiki on animals, and I got so excited about it that I signed up for a Reiki 1 certification course. This is a people-based course, but I think I can use that knowledge along with my own research to practice on animals. After being certified in Reiki 1, I'm not certified to work on people yet. I would have to go through Reiki 2 training in order to do that, which I plan to do in the future. I feel like if I can get enough experience and practice in reiki on animals, I can use it a viable means to supplement my income in the future without over-working myself. So that's my newest idea. I'm taking reiki 1 class this Saturday, and I'm super excited to see what I learn.

Now back to the shamanism. Jeffre talked a lot about the Inka Medicine Wheel and how it is used. Again, I don't know enough to explain it to you, so if you're interested try doing some research of your own. What I do know is there are 4 directions represented by 4 different animals, and in each direction you learn something different. When you are going through the medicine wheel, you start in the south, then go to the west, then north, then end in the east. Jeffre offers classes on the four directions, and I would love to take them. They are 2 1/2 days each with about 6 months in between in order for you to incorporate the new changes you learned into your life, so it takes 1 1/2 years to complete the course. The first class is in May, and I'm heavily considering signing up for it, but the problem is it's super expensive. I could probably come up with the money if I really tried, but I'd have to make sacrifices elsewhere in life. I feel like it would be very beneficial to my life to go through the course, though, so I'm going to try to make it happen. We'll see. It's to bad insurance doesn't cover alternative medicine and healing.

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I think that's all I have for now. Thanks for reading. I'll post again next weekend with news about my reiki class!

Oh, one more thing... could someone please do me a favor and leave a test comment on here? I know everyone was having trouble commenting before, so I tried to fix it, and I want to make sure it works. Thanks!

Milestones

I love this quote. I feel like it resonates well with my life.

Ok, I am WAY behind on this blog already. It's been such a busy last few weeks that I haven't really had a chance to sit down and write everything out. That also means that I have a LOT to talk about, so I'm just going to get right to it. Here's what's been going on in a semi chronological order...

Genetic Test
Back in January, my geneticist Dr. Slotnik drew my blood for a genetic test to see if we could figure out what caused my dissection. The results came in late in February, so we set up a meeting with him and the genetic counselor, Erica Wellington, to discuss what they found. Here's what we learned:

I tested positive for a pathologic mutation in the ACTA2 gene. This isn't the same gene that causes Marfan's disease, which is what every doctor asks me when they first hear I dissected, but it does cause a connective tissue disorder like Marfan's does. The mutation is autosomal dominant, meaning anyone with the mutation has a 50/50 chance of passing it on to their children, and since this is almost definitely what Karli had, that means my mom is the carrier since we had different dads. So why didn't my mom dissect? Well, there's something called penetrance which affects how much of the mutation is actually expressed. My mom likely has low penetrance, so her only symptoms of the mutation are iris cysts (which I also happen to have). Unfortunately for Karli and me, we had high penetrance, so we expressed the most severe form of the disease, aortic dissections at an early age. Excuse my language, but we basically got the shit end of the stick since there was a 50% chance that we wouldn't have had the mutation, and we also could have had low penetrance like my mom, but nooooo. We got the worst of the worst. I know my mom feels horribly guilty for passing this on to us, but there was no way for her to know she had it. Plus, the mutation might not have even started with her to begin with. It could have come from her mom or dad, or their parents, and so on.

So what happens next? People in my family start getting tested for the mutation. My mom and grandma need to go first to see if we can figure out where this came from, and then my mom's sisters need to get tested. If my grandma has the mutation, there's a 50% chance that any one of my aunts have it also. If any of my aunts test positive, their kids needs to get tested too. It's a big long chain of testing to see where this damn thing started and where it's going. Then there's Bodie. Since Karli had the mutation, there's a 50% chance that Bodie has it also. That's kind of scary, since no one in my family can even imagine going through another trauma like we've already been unfortunate enough to have two of. There's no reason to worry just yet though since there's never been a report of a dissection in a child younger than 12, and Bodie wouldn't even need to start being monitored by echocardiogram until he was at least 6 years old. That buys us some time, but I know it will be in the back of everyone's mind until we get an answer. Even if he does have the mutation though, it's not a death sentence. It all goes back to penetrance again. In fact, very few people with this mutation actually dissect, so there's a good chance he wouldn't have any symptoms at all.

Now that I know I have this mutation, what does this mean for me? Well, the next step for me is to go to UCSF and see a cardiovascular genetic specialist. He/she should be able to give me a plan basically for the rest of my life. They'll be able to tell me what I need to do to monitor my condition, how often I need to be seen, what other symptoms I might show, and what to watch for in the future. While I'm relieved to finally put a name to my disease, I'm basically set up for a lifetime of echocardiograms, CT scans, doctor appointments, and possibly even more surgeries in the future if my aorta starts to look unstable. We actually got a call from UCSF yesterday morning, and I'm scheduled to go in April 17th. I guess we'll see then what my future is going to look like.

The second part of the equation for me is in the future when I decide I want to have kids. Since there is a 50% chance of me passing this on, it's pretty risky to conceive naturally, so we're likely looking at IVF. It's pretty cool actually. Their testing is so advanced these days that they can grow an embryo in the lab, and when it's only 8 cells big, they can take one of those cells and run a genetic test on it to see if it carries the mutation. Then, they can select only the embryos without the mutation to use for implantation. They can also do gender selection, but Brandon won't let me do that. (I'm just kidding; I wouldn't want to do that anyways.) Once they select the embryo without the mutation, they would implant it either in me or in a surrogate, depending on what we choose. The choice of using a surrogate or not depends mostly on my health and the risk to me of carrying a baby. Dr. Albright, my vascular surgeon, says it shouldn't be a risk to my aorta to be pregnant, but I'm mostly worried about the crap-ton of scar tissue I have in my abdomen. I have scar tissue binding my intestines, my muscles, my vertebrae, and my diaphragm, so I can't imagine my uterus escaped the mess. Not to mention that much stretching of scar tissue has to be horribly uncomfortable. Anyways, that's a decision Brandon and I will have to make when the time comes.

Stomach Tube
Also in the last week of February, I got my stomach tube pulled finally! I think I mentioned in a previous post that I was incredibly nervous because I made the mistake of watching a YouTube video of a girl getting her tube pulled, and it scared the crap out of me. Well, it turns out I had a different kind of tube, and it was no big deal at all. The doctor just deflated the balloon that was in my stomach, yanked quickly, and the tube popped out! It only hurt a tiny bit. Mostly it just scared me because I didn't know he was going to pull it so quickly. Peggy the duck, the stuffed animal the nurse gave me the day I got my tube placed, came with me to the appointment for comfort. Here's some before and after pictures of my belly. The bandage is off now, and I just have a small, round indented scab where the tube was. If you're squeamish, scroll to the next section quickly!

 

Peggy the duck for moral support

Our Wedding: 3-1-14
Here's the section I know everyone has been waiting for. Brandon and I got married! That's right, I'm officially Mrs. Wiltzius (well, not legally yet... I'm avoiding all the paperwork). Here's how our day and night went:

Friday was pretty much the day of mass arrival. My friends Brittney and Donald drove in from Utah, Brandon came in from Oregon that evening, and shortly after, his mom and grandma, Sandy and Dorothy, got in from Washington. My mom and I got our nails done, and Cat treated me to an awesome facial at the Peppermill. Saturday morning, March 1st, we got up early to start the festivities. Brittney, Donald, and Amanda came over for a big breakfast of eggs, toast, fruit, cottage cheese, doughnuts, and mimosas (which we later discovered to everyone's disappointment that we were using non-alcoholic champagne). After breakfast, the girls came with me to get my hair done. Nicole did a beautiful half-up style with curls and little braids on the sides. It was perfect, and I was amazed at what she was able to do with the little hair I have left. After that, I was going to just do my own makeup, but I got lazy, so it wasn't hard for the girls to talk me into going to get it done. MAC will do a free makeover if you buy $50 in product, so we drove to the mall to get my makeup done. Again, it was perfect. I told the girl I wanted a natural look, and she nailed it. Plus, I had an excuse to buy some new makeup for the first time in forever. I'm glad I didn't try to do it myself.

Once we got home, it was time to start getting dressed. I had bought a dress last summer when I thought I was getting married in August in Yosemite, so fortunately that was taken care of. The only problem was that I've lost 30 pounds since I bought the dress, and I didn't have time to get it altered, so it was pretty big on me. I also had a veil, which I wasn't planning on having, but a few weeks ago when I went to buy a bridesmaid dress for my friend's wedding, I tried it on for fun and fell in love with it. All I have to say about getting dressed for the wedding is thank god I had my girls there. My dress had about a thousand buttons up the back, the bridal shop forgot to sew in a button to hold the train up, and the sticky boob cups I bought to make my dress fit a little better were the wrong kind. I started to get upset because I felt like I wanted everything to be perfect, but nothing was going right in the way of my dress, and I didn't feel as beautiful as I wanted to. With a little persuading that it was all in my head, I got over it pretty fast. Mom, grandma, Brittney, and Amanda- thank you guys for all the help. We put my shoes on, grabbed my adorable bouquet (a dried bouquet of little pinecones and greenery we bought on Etsy), and headed out the door without Brandon seeing me.

When we got to the Peavine Pavilion at Rancho San Rafael park, everyone was there waiting, and I started to get a little nervous. Fortunately on my walk up to the spot where we were getting married, I was so focused on dodging goose poop that I didn't pay attention to everyone staring at me. When I looked up, Brandon looked so handsome in his suspenders and little pinecone boutonniere! It was a little chilly out, but there was no rain, so we went out on the deck overlooking the pond to start the ceremony. Ed gave a beautiful speech before he started reading, and of course he was crying from the minute he started talking. I think everyone cried at some point that day. He got through the first part of our ceremony before the raindrops started falling, so we took a little intermission and moved under the shelter. It's good luck if it rains on your wedding day, right? Once safe from the rain, we resumed the ceremony. Maybe it's because I get nervous being the center of attention, but I felt like I was standing there forever. In reality the ceremony was probably only 15 minutes, but it felt like hours. Brandon and I wrote our own vows, and I pretty much cried through all of them. I was a little worried that Brandon's would be weird because I wasn't convinced he even knew what vows were, but I should've known better. He's an amazing writer, and he floored me with what he said. I was so nervous that now I don't remember them, but luckily I have them framed so I can go back and read them again and again. Ed finished up the ceremony, and when it was time to pronounce us husband and wife, he mispronounced Brandon's last name, not surprisingly. I think he said something along the lines of "Mr. and Mrs. Wissius," and everyone burst out laughing. It was a nice little comic relief to ease my nerves. When we finally got to kiss as a married couple, it was so amazing. Without getting too mushy on you guys, I'll just say it was one of happiest, proudest moments of my life, especially since 6 months ago I wasn't sure I would ever get out of the hospital or be able to walk again. The rain had finally stopped, but it was getting chillier by the minute, so we gave a bunch of hugs and took a few pictures by the pond before rushing off to the cars. Ed did an absolutely beautiful job with the ceremony, and despite some "imperfections" in the day, it was perfect to me.

After the ceremony, we went over to BJ's Brewhouse for food and drinks. It was kind of awkward walking into a  popular restaurant wearing a wedding dress, but we had a big enough group of people that I didn't feel quite so out of place. We spent the next couple hours eating a bunch of appetizers and pizza and drinking beer and cocktails and talking with friends and making toasts and taking pictures. It was a slightly strange setup with 2 tables side by side so we couldn't see or hear everyone in our group, but I think everyone had a good time. Brandon and I got to drink out of our new personalized champagne flutes that the Stewarts got us, and I got to have a girly cocktail called a pink cadillac. Yum! When everyone one was done eating, Brandon and I cut and served the cake the Rachel helped me make. It was alternating vanilla and chocolate cake with bavarian cream and cherry pie filling between the layers and sprinkled with powdered sugar. I have to say, I'm pretty damn proud of that cake. It was delicious. There was only one little piece leftover, which Brandon and I shared the next morning. Lastly we handed out our wedding favors that my mom and I made, which were miniature terra cotta pots planted with either nasturtiums or dahlias. On the side was written something along the lines of "Let love grow" or "Watch our love grow" or "Help our love grow."

Flower pot wedding favors

Paper crane cake topper I made

After BJs, we planned to go home for a couple hours to rest then meet up at Roxy's in the El Dorado for martinis and music since Brandon and I were staying there for the night. I went home and changed into some jeans and my white tank top with "bride" written across the chest in rhinestones. I thought we were going to rest between, but I should know my family by now. A bunch of people came over, and we ended up having a little party in the kitchen with quite a few shots of tequila thrown in there. At some point Brandon and I bailed so we could go check into our room at the El Dorado and meet up at Roxy's. When we checked in, we told the front desk lady that we just got married, so she comped us an upgraded room. She said there were no suites available, but it sounds like if there were she would've given us one of those, which would've been awesome. Our room was nice enough anyways... a couple of fluffy beds and a window overlooking the mountains. After checking in, we headed down to Roxy's to meet up with everyone. If you've never been to Roxy's, you have to go. They have 102 different martinis, and even though they're $9 each, they pack a punch. I had 2 drinks all night and I was good to go. The first one I got was called the Tootsie Roll Martini. I was a little worried because when the lady was pouring it, it kind of looked like a glass of sewer water, but it tasted exactly like a tootsie roll! It was so delicious. People started slowly filtering in, and if they weren't hammered when they got there, they were very shortly after. The pianist/singer guy was pretty terrible, and he was followed by a DJ who was about equally bad, but it was really entertaining to watch all my drunk friends and family dance awkwardly with each other. I think the best part was watching Brandon's friends Kris and Tyler twerking with each other and picking each other up. At one point my mom got in trouble with security because she took her shoes off and refused to put them back on, claiming she lost them. When the security guard asked her what they looked like and she said cowboy boots, he pointed to the floor right beneath her and said, "You mean those ones right there?" She acted all surprised like she was so happy he found them for her, but I'm pretty sure he knew she was just trying to not wear shoes.

We ended up staying at Roxy's for a really long time. My friends Danny and Robert came by to celebrate, and Dimitry even stumbled across us and stopped in to say hi. I never got drunk myself because I started to feel kind of crappy the more I drank, but I had a good time watching everyone else cut loose. I tried to dance at one point even, which is really hard when you don't have good balance in the best of times, let alone when you're in a room full of drunk people bumping into you. But I got to dance with Brandon briefly, and Ed even pushed me around the dance floor a little before I sat back down. Brandon got a bit emotional and started telling all his friends how much they mean to him and kissing everyone on the forehead. There were several games of "try to throw the almond down someone's shirt." I'm pretty sure at one point Tyler pulled his nipple out of his shirt and let my mom touch it. Like I said, it was a pretty entertaining evening. We ended up staying there until about 2am, when everyone decided they were drunk and exhausted and needed to go home. I was starving, so Brandon, Amanda, Brittney, Donald, and I stopped at the cafe to get some "breakfast" before finally parting ways. When we got back to our room, we were so exhausted that we just got into bed and passed out and slept until about 11am. I was so tired I think it took me 4 solid days to recover. It was definitely the most activity I'd had since July.

Our wedding was pretty low key and non-traditional with just 25 of our closest friends and family members, and we didn't plan much of it, deciding instead to just let things happen how they would. There were a few hiccups, but it was honestly one of the best days of my life. We had a wonderful group of family and close friends around us, the ceremony setting was beautiful, and everyone had a lot of fun. I couldn't have asked for a better wedding. I've had a bunch of people ask me to post pictures on Facebook, but I'm not quite ready to do that yet (still waiting to get some from people), but I'll post a couple teasers just to satisfy everyone's curiosity. Hopefully I'll have all of them posted to Facebook by the end of the week.

Brandon and I are going to San Diego next week on a mini honeymoon. The weather is supposed to be pretty decent, so hopefully we'll get some good beach time in. We're also going to the zoo, Balboa park, on a whale watching trip, and whatever else we decide to do. Brandon's never been there before, and I haven't been since I was a little kid, so we're pretty excited to explore together. Plus, we haven't been on many real trips together. This will only be the second time we've flown together!

CT Scan/Dr. Albright
I had an appointment with Dr. Albright a couple days ago to discuss a CT scan I had last week. The good news is my aorta appears stable still. The other news -- I don't want to call it bad news because it's both good and bad -- is that I definitely have an intestinal stricture in my lower left abdomen. I don't know why all my other doctors including my GI doctors have been so wishy washy about what's going on and refusing to commit to a diagnosis. They all say stuff like, "Well, your intestines narrow down like there is an obstruction, but we don't actually see the obstruction so we're not sure what's going on." Dr. Albright didn't understand that either because she said she's known I have a stricture, and she can see it in the same place on every CT scan I have. This is good news because now I know for sure what's going on in my intestines, and I now know how to proceed in handling it. The bad news is that Dr. Albright doesn't think it will resolve on its own, and surgery is going to be the only option to get rid of it. I asked her if I needed to start thinking about surgery soon, and she said that it's not an emergency, and I should wait until after I'm done with school. She thinks as long as I can manage my symptoms and learn how to eat the right foods to not aggravate it, I'll be better off if I finish school, give my body time to recover and stabilize, and then consider surgery when I'm at a more convenient point in my life. I guess in my heart I knew I'd have to have another surgery eventually, but now that it's for certain I sort of feel defeated, like I'm at the mercy of my own body. Plus now I'll have to find time to get the surgery next summer after I graduate when I'm trying to find a job, move back to Reno, and plan our wedding reception. Sometimes I just feel like it's one thing after another and I can't catch a break. As far as managing my symptoms until then, she recommended I make an appointment with a pain management doctor to figure out a way to keep me out of the ER when my stomach backs up and I'm in intense pain. She thinks if I can get a sublingual or intramuscular pain medicine to give myself when I get in that position, it will keep me out of the hospital and help me manage the sickness at home. I have an appointment at the end of this month with a pain management doctor to discuss my options.

The other interesting thing that came out of talking to Dr. Albright is that I learned that when I dissected, one of my spinal arteries (spinal artery of Adamkiewicz) was taken out in the process. This is called a spinal stroke, and that's why I was paraplegic for a few days before collateral circulation to my legs kicked in. That's also why I had such bad nerve damage to my legs. Neither my mom nor I had heard this before, and we thought the problems with my legs were due to the dissection and aneurysm itself. I'm not sure why no one had told us that before, but it was interesting to hear because it makes a lot more sense. It's amazing how after almost 9 months, we're still learning new things about my medical condition.

School
I finally made up my mind, and after a lot of thinking and vacillating and talking with my PTs, I've decided to wait until June to go back to school. I was sort of planning on trying to start in April since my rotation schedule for the spring didn't look too taxing, but like Sabrina my PT said, my body has been through a huge trauma, and even though I am getting stronger every day, my body needs time to rest and recover. Since school is working with me and being flexible on when I come back, there's no reason to rush into it. I'm a little bummed because I was hoping to have some rotations with my classmates and finish out the year with my friends, but I think it's the right decision. I would hate to go back before my body is ready and be exhausted and sick the whole time. Vet school is hard enough as it is, so I might as well get as much strength back as I can beforehand. I just feel like I'm being left behind though. I spent 3 years seeing the same people every day and sharing the same excitements and disappointments with them. Now they're almost graduating, and I'm just hanging out at home doing nothing. It's like my second family is moving on without me, and the worst part is I don't feel like they miss me nearly as much as I miss them. It's a daily battle in my mind to not feel inadequate and worthless, and sometimes I lose that battle. But then on the flip side, part of me isn't even sure I want to go back to school at all. Obviously I have to... I've spent too much time and money on it to give up with just a year left. I'm sure it's just the depression talking, but I don't know if my heart is in it anymore. My whole life I've been so sure of what I wanted to do, and now I feel like I don't even know who I am let alone what I want to do with my life. I'm a different person now, and it's hard to figure out where being a veterinarian is going to fit into my new life. I've told myself I need to go back to school and finish, and after I get my degree, I can decide then if it's what I want to do or not. I just have to keep fighting the feelings of being too far behind to catch up.

It's officially set now. I emailed the Dean's office last weekend letting them know I'd be back in June, so now I have to stop questioning my decision. It is what it is. I'm going back in June whether I want to or not, and I'll be starting up with a whole new group of people, and I'll graduate in 2015.

Guilt
This is probably going to be the hardest section for me to write because I can't just throw a bunch of science out there. In my first ever blog post I said that I was going to be as honest as possible, so here it goes.

With all the new information we've been learning about my medical condition, like the name of the genetic mutation and the results of my CT scan, I've been able to better understand exactly what happened to both my sister and me as well as why it happened. Like I mentioned in the section about genetics, the severity of the symptoms depends on the penetrance of the mutation. I understand that both Karli and I were unlucky enough to have high penetrance, and that we both probably would have dissected eventually, but in both our cases the aortic dissection was brought on by an episode of very high blood pressure. In Karli's case, her pregnancy likely caused her blood pressure to rise, causing her aorta to split. However, in my situation, the jump in my blood pressure was self-induced, and here's where the guilt kicks in. Some people know this already, especially the people that were at High Sierra with me, but many people don't know one of the facts. The night my aorta dissected, I was on molly (a form a ecstasy), and that made my blood pressure skyrocket. I'm sure some people will judge me for this and probably be disappointed in me, but this is my dose of honesty.

I can't totally blame myself for what happened being that I had no idea about this genetic mutation and having no history of high blood pressure whatsoever. Being truthful, if I were to go back to that night at High Sierra knowing only what I knew then, I probably would have made the same decision. I had tried molly only once before, the previous year at High Sierra. It was about 7 months after Karli died, and taking molly made me feel happier than I had felt in a really long time. It was actually one of the best nights of my life, so of course last summer when I had the chance to do it again, I didn't hesitate. I don't really know why I feel so guilty because I believe that I would have dissected eventually regardless, but I guess I feel guilty that I facilitated the event and put everyone through such trauma. So there it is, me being honest.
Judge me or blame me if you want, but it is what it is. I made the decisions I made, and that's all there is to it.

Now it's time to move forward.