35 is the year

Mark it down, people. 35 is the year I physically 'fell apart'. I have actually been falling apart little by little up until now, but just this year, these little incidents of 'falling apart' have acquired names and diagnoses. Although that brings some sense of relief, knowing most of these things that have happened to me actually have names, it doesn't make me feel any better about the continuing process. And I haven't been 35 for that long yet...


So, in late August I was diagnosed as having a spontaneous episode of pleurisy. Not sure where it came from--no trauma, no incident. Just pain whenever I would inhale. I got the work-up at the hospital, and although no definitive diagnosis was made, they did mention they found gall stones that were sedentary at the moment, but could move anytime they wanted. Great. So, moving on, my regular doctor and I started the discussion about fibro myalgia. Kind of. I am a classic case, but nobody wants to get pigeon-holed too quickly. So, as we are 'thinking about it', I have joint aches, headaches, sleep apnea, depression, difficulty concentrating, restless leg syndrome, digestive issues, and almost every other sign of the disease. Problem? This disease is primarily treated symptom by symptom, except for some medications for the muscle aches and pains. There have been attempts at some point in the past 10 years or so addressing each of those symptoms as seperate entities, but not until recently did I stumble upon research which connects all these symptoms together as a diagnosis. So I read up on the medications for the muscle aches and pains, thinking, "I am achey all the time". Well, it turns out these medications are whatever category it is when you can't take them while pregnant or breast feeding. Read this not 1 week prior to starting preparation for another pregnancy. So, this has all gone to the back burner, because I did become pregnant rather quickly. The one true joy of being 35 so far.



So, this all leads up to yesterday, when I received a call from the opthamologist office I had been going to for some blurry vision issues. I have seen 2 separate doctors, one initially, and then he deferred me to a cornea specialist within the office. So, I had some scarring on my cornea that wasn't easily explained. To the doctor, it looked as if I had some eye surgery previously, which I had not. So, possibly this is why my vision was intermittently blurring. Did the eye drop regimen for a month or two, stopped wearing contact lenses for a long stretch to let my corneas heal, and just got cleared to go ahead and try the contact lenses again for short periods of time. Cool. Paid the bill and thought I was done. Apparently not. What happened was, when I got referred to the 2nd physician within the office, she held on to my chart as she was currently treating me. The initial physician I saw had ordered some visual tests to be done routinely, and they were, and the results were put into 'his' section of the chart. So the test results from early October just got verified by him this past week, as the 2nd doc turned my chart back in, and it shows I may have glaucoma. At freakin' 35 years old. I am just numb thinking about this. The medical assistant called me to tell me this on the phone. I am trying to figure out why the doc that has had my chart for the past couple of months hasn't noticed this or addressed this, and meanwhile, the medical assistant is talking about surgery and eye drops and what route do I want to go with this. Uhhh, can I have a little time to let this all settle in on my brain? So, I scour for more info reguarding glaucoma, because I have never needed to really know much about it. "2nd leading cause of blindness", "irreversible vision loss", "early treatment and detection" are some of the phrases I read that keep going on in my head all night long. Which is why, after so long, I decided I needed to blog at 430am. I wasn't sleeping, and to be honest, all my brain is thinking about is what I would miss and not be able to do if I lost my vision completely. There goes my career, my independence at ANY level, just everything--gone. The thought of not seeing my girls and my husband as they grow is just devastating. I can't stop crying and I don't want to close my eyes, ever, because I want to impress upon my brain all the visual info I can register now for use later if I get to the point when I can't see it anymore. How sad is it that I am having to think like this at 35? Like I said, mark it down.