Life is like a roller coaster.
You have ups, you have downs.
Sometimes it's super fun! Weeeeeee!!
Other times it can be extremely stressful or scary.
Lately I've been on the latter track, the stressful and scary one. It's felt kind of like the safety bar is faulty and I feel like I'm slipping out of the seat and I'm going to go flying off of the ride.
When your mom dies from a disease (Pulmonary Fibrosis) that you know she has but the doctors failed to tell you is fatal in 3-5 years and then her brother dies from the same thing three months later you get a little paranoid. Especially when it can be hereditary. My sister had a dry cough for a long time and that is one of the symptoms of PF, so she was rightly concerned that she may have it so she was tested. Thankfully the test came back negative. She did, however find out some other information about her health which, while good for her to know, still wasn't the best of news.
Then I started getting sick. Basically it felt like a cold but it hung around too long so I went into the doctor who started me on antibiotics. The first two rounds didn't do anything so I thought maybe it was viral and I tried treating things with OTC meds which helped a little but I just wasn't getting better. I had a cough and my lungs felt really tight so I went back in to see my doctor. He put me on some steroids and the heaviest hitting antibiotic he had. I felt better for about three days and then we were back to round one where I was feeling tired and out of breath and just plain yucky. When my doctor learned that I still wasn't feeling well he was concerned because he said that the antibiotic that he put me on "kills everything". And a little voice in the back of my head said "What if it's Pulmonary Fibrosis?"
My doctor and I have had this conversation before and I have had x-rays on my chest that had said that I didn't have it. But I was still nervous and really, the best way to screen for PF is an MRI. After we chatted my doctor agreed that I should have an MRI done to see if that might be what was going on. I didn't say anything about it on Facebook or social media because, in all honesty, I was really, really scared. I was coming home from work exhausted and passing out on the couch, I was out of breath just singing a song.
It felt like that safety bar was very, very wobbly.
Ty and I went to the temple the day before I had the MRI. I needed to find peace and maybe some answers to what the future might hold. As we went into the celestial room of the Mt. Timpanogos Temple I looked into the mirrors that are there, and I received my answers.
You are eternal. No matter what happens you will go on. And I felt peace.
I went in for the MRI on Thursday afternoon at 4:40 and Friday at about 7:15 I got the call from the doctor with the results. Thankfully there is no Pulmonary Fibrosis. However it did show that I have fluid around my heart. In medical terms it's called Pericardial Effusion. I was informed that the amount of fluid around my heart was minimal and not to be too concerned about it. I was told to get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluid and to exercise.
The safety bar feels a little less wobbly now. Still not locked in place but definitely less wobbly.
I am still tired. It's still hard to catch my breath some days. I get as much rest as I can but with having to work (thankfully it's not a physically difficult job), trying to get our house ready to sell, having four kids three who have varying degrees of crises whirling around them (who would have thought that my son with autism would be the one that I have the least amount of worry for?), selling my mom's house and getting ready to chaperon a bunch of high school choir kids in California... rest really isn't easy to come by. Nor is exercise. Fluids I can do.
Anyway, I just want to say that in spite of everything.
I am so very grateful to be on this ride.
I am thankful for the highs and the lows.
I am surrounded by amazing people who are on this ride that we call life with me.
I am blessed beyond measure with the best seat partner anyone could ask for.
And even though that darn safety bar still feels wiggly....
Everything will be okay.
