My life in a nutshell...or so it feels...

My whole life I have had weird and unexplainable health issues. I am the family health joke. If it is weird than I either have it or know about it. When I was little about 3 or so I passed out unexplainably while my mom was bathing me. Again when I was 16 I passed out in the lobby of the dr's office after having stiches removed. Two months into my freshman year at the U I pass out unexplainably twice and then become so ill that I am pretty much bed ridden for two weeks. MRI's, CT scan's, sleep deprieved EEG's and EKG's are performed only to determine that I am not epileptic and that there is no known reason for why my body is acting the way it is. I had to quit school and move back home.
I was 6 mos. pregnant with Hunter when I was put on bedrest for Hypertension and Toximia. No problem, it runs in the family. Hunter was 4 weeks old when I had to have my galbladder removed, again no problem, it is common in women who have just had a baby. Everything seems to be ok minus some infections from the surgery. So Brian and I decide to wait until Hunter is about 2 before we start trying for more kids. We had discussed having a total of 4 kids and with Hunter we were half way there. So when Hunter was about a year and a half we started trying again. Considering I come from a long line of fertile myrtle's no problem...right? WRONG!!! So about 2 years go by andI finally get pregnant only to miscarry. I was about 12 weeks along and the baby died at like 7 weeks or something like that. So than I have to heal from that and we start trying again. I get where I don't feel good a lot, not like a cold or a flu, just groggy and yucky and no energy. When you have 2 toddlers running around it isn't all that easy to be sick and get the rest you need.
Then I had gained some weight when we moved to AZ but I figured that it might be from missing my family. But at the same time I didn't eat like a crazy person that would explain all of the weight. About 2 months after moving to AZ I get bit by a sister spider to the brown recluse(sp?) on the back of my leg while I am sleeping in my bed. YIKES!!! About 4 months after the spider bite has cleared up I have these painful hard bumps on the shins of my legs. It started on one leg and then it went to both but nowhere else on my body. They are red and on my super white legs totally stand out when wearing shorts, so no shorts for me in hot AZ. Once I have had them for a couple of months and they are not going away I go to the dr. He tells me it's something or other that has no cure and we leave it at that. Pretty much what I got out of it was that they go away when they want to. So about 2 1/2 years later they seem like they might be getting better and going away, actually I only had like two bumps left on one leg.
So at this point, random passing out, not getting pregnant, unexplained weight gain, and bumps on my leg. So my whole life I have been over endowed as far as female anatomy is concerned. Brian and I had discussed that after we were done having babies that we would look into a reduction so that I could still breast feed. After a few years of trying to get pregnant with no luck and not being able to loose the weight even with diet and exercise we decide to go ahead with the reduction in hopes that I will be able to loose some weight and get pregnant. Yes we figured that there woul be a chance I might not be able to breast feed but it was a risk we were willing to take. So April 2005 I had a reduction and wouldn't have changed it for the world. The insurance paid for it 100% and it has been great. Yes some downfalls have been sore scar tissue and I was not able to breast feed McKadie like I wanted to. It was about a 2 month recovery time and I was hoping to get back on the workout bandwagon. I was doing good for a few months and then about September I start feeling really blah again.
I am tired a lot and just don't have a lot of energy. I get really lightheaded and dizzy when I get too hot and so we don't know if this is part of the summer heat that is causing me to be so tired. Well October comes around and I am more tired and now I have been fighting a pain in my stomach again. A few months prior I went to see a surgeon because my dr. thought I might have a hernia due to this pain in my side. No hernia. So now the pain is back in October and is more intense. I go to the Urgent Care and they discover a pea size cyst on my right ovary. This was on the weekend so they refer me to see an OB on Monday. By Tuesday after having another ultrasound the cyst has grown to the size of an olive. The OB decideds that it needs to be removed surgically so that my female organs are not hurt. It is supposed to be a same day surgery, in and out and home recovering. When I start coming out of the anesthesia I notice I am being admitted into a room in the building and I hear Brian making arrangements for the kids to be watched over night.
Shortly after the dr. comes in and explains that I am being admitted because when he got the scope in he discovered that the cyst had grown to a very large size and had entangled itself around my tubes and everything else. I asked exactly how big it was because this was Friday and 3 days prior it was the size of an olive. He responds by holding his hands up and making a circle and says the size of a large grapefruit. YIKES!!! So I have a scar on my lower abdomen that looks like I had a C-section. That surgery was in the beginning of November of 05. December of 05 we move back to Utah. By February of 06 I am still having abdominal pain sparatically and other symptoms. In AZ they never gave me an explanation. The dr. that delivered Hunter explained to me that I have Poly Cystic Ovarian Disease/Syndrome. Some of the side effects are weight gain due to insulin resistance, infertility, and ovarian cysts to name a few. Well in April when the bumps on my legs started getting worse again I went to see a specialist and it ends up that I have something called erythema nodosum which has over 100 causes and again has no cure, so Brian and I have determined it is the same thing the AZ dr told us about. So I finally get pregnant in February of 07 and was on bedrest for the whole darn thing mostly from complications to the PCOD and McKadie is 3 weeks early. So the only help for the cysts is to take Birth Control or to be pregnant, if you can even get pregnant.
About 2 months ago I feel like I am getting a cyst again, the first bad one I have had since Christmas which is also when I got my first kidney stone, OUCH!!! So I keep an eye on it like normal, just take it easy and hope it passes with aunt flo's sometimes monthly visit. Not so lucky, it's still there and now causing more unbearable pain. I go into the ER on the 2nd, and then again on Sunday evening on the 6th. The first time we thought it was going away, the second visit determined that it is still there and growing. So now I am living on pain killers and am waiting for some test results because the birth control I was on was a low dose, due to the family history of strokes because my dad had one in November and was only 47 at the time, is apparently not working. They have to do the test to make sure I won't have a stroke if they put me on a stronger Birth Control. If I can't take the birth control then the only other option is to take my ovaries which means a hysterectomy at the age of 27. Dilemma??? We are leaning towards a hysterectomy only because the test can't guarantee I don't ever have a stroke or heart attack and it also won't guarantee I never have another cyst.
So in a nutshell my body doesn't like me but I try and remember the positive and that I am not dying!!!