It's Been Rough

I won't lie. This past week has been one of the tougher ones in my history. The only time I can remember crying this hard or being on the verge of crying this consistently I was in elementary school and my best friend had just died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. I find myself being a hermit because I loathe crying in front of people and just about anything can set me off.

I skipped out on my niece's second birthday party and feel horribly guilty for it but it was two days after my negative beta. I did what was best for me. If I had gone one or all of several things could have happened...

• a. someone would ask me when we're having kids  
• b. someone would give me that puppy dog look because they know about our failed cycle 
•  c. someone would comment about how my niece 'looks exactly like' me 
• d. someone ie (my brother most likely) would have said something stupid and I would have gotten violent very quickly and finally
• e. I would not have been able to show affection to my niece like she expects which would have upset her and in turn everyone else including me.

I know I'm a ticking emotional timebomb and I have no desire to explode in front of anyone or to take anyone out with me when I go. All of the above scenarios would have resulted in a lot of ugly crying, a panic attack for being seen crying, and alot of explanation on the part of others for my behavior. No thank you. I did however send gifts.  My brother in his amazingly clueless manner got vaguely upset because he thought it would be better for me to be around my family during this time. Uh no. If he can't see why that's a bad idea then he doesn't understand the nature of the beast. I can barely step inside of town without having to blink back tears because everywhere there's babies and pregnant women and overheard conversations about babies, pregnant women, and adoption. Just going into Joann's for fabric was hard because I saw all the cute fuzzy fabric and yarn that I was just dying to make baby blankets with.
I can't say that my negative beta blindsided me. I was and still am well aware of the stats. At best its a coin toss. I am blindsided by my emotional reaction.
One of the things that is particularly hard to resolve is the damage that I did to my foot while working in order to pay for this cycle. It has been a month and a half since I left work and still not a day goes by without some level of pain. I am frustrated beyond words that before I took the jobs to pay for IVF that my foot was the best it had ever been in my life. No pain, no limping, increased movement etc. And now it is the worst it has ever been consistently. I could have handled this sacrifice if the payout had been there. But now its hard to think of all that I have lost for the sake of that one cycle. I hurt myself perhaps permanently for nothing, I spent more money on that one cycle than anything else in my life save our house.
I keep feeling like I am being pressured to move on and make a decision both from without and within. I know how I feel now that I don't want to do another cycle especially not a full blown one. At our clinic that would cost meds and all somewhere in the $25k range. That is almost a third of our remaining mortgage. That is almost four times the cost of my car or two times the cost of my husband's. I know if it were to work it would be worth it. I also know that if it didn't work I would become such an angry bitter resentful old biddy the world would not be able to handle me. I don't even know if I could handle me. And it would take a minimum of 6 months to get there financially and that's a cutting so far back you're on a bread and water type diet. I spent the last 9 months living exclusively for this chance. I don't know if I can handle living another 7 or so just for it to fail again.
On the flip side we've a couple friend, actually our bestman and his wife, who are adopting. Their profile went live recently and they will have spent about $18k when all is said and done. We have almost 13k in the bank from the car accident and there's a chance that we could actually spend less than what they are.
Both arguments are compelling and I'm having a hard time sorting through them. I'm thinking of going to a counseling session just to have an unbiased opinion.
At the moment I'm just trying to keep my head above water.

It's official ...I'm an old lady :0

So my appointment with the foot doctor went well, surprisingly well actually.
I liked him. He listened well. Was firm but not rough. And he explained himself well without dropping too deep into the technical jargon end of the swimming pool.
The pain on my bunion (which by the way definitely isn't your run of the mill bunion if my freaky looking xrays are to be believed) is, he thinks, get this, gout! I just about dropped through the floor when he said it. I mean really...really!? A. I'm too damn young to have gout B. I don't eat hardly anything on the list that causes gout C . I'm pretty darn active and  D. I'm too damn young to have gout! Sorry that one deserved reiterating. He said that it was very rare for a woman my age to have it, but all signs, pictures, etc pointed in that direction. Bleck.
He dubbed the worst of my current pain as peroneal tendonitis and the stiffness as soft tissue/muscle damage. He gave me two options. Wear this little padded bit under my foot for two weeks to see if that helps at all or wear The Boot. Guess which one I chose? Apparently the little padded bit will tell him if I am a good candidate for orthotics which would take the work load off that tendon which would in turn help with the other damage since my foot and ankle wouldn't be over compensating anymore. He said there was a 60% chance that a simple orthotic would work.  He said that the boot would definitely help but once I took it off I'd likely go right back into pain.
So here's the current plan. Wear the padded bit for two weeks, pay very close attention to my pain levels. Then if it has helped at all, get casted for orthotics. If it hasn't helped or it hurts worse, it'll either be the boot or an AFO. He thinks an articulated AFO would be best for me at the moment. If that doesn't work, surgery. Honestly I'll quit my job before I get that far.
He did say that I needed to prepare myself for surgery probably one way or another. He expects that by the time I'm 40 or 50 it'll be a necessity. I really really hope he's wrong, and I can beat those odds and live a nice long active surgery free life.
One doc visit down, one to go. Now that its out of the way I can feel myself getting really nervous about our RE consultation.

I love my kitty but...

...Seriously this morning I could have killed her.


She looks sweet and innocent but don't be fooled, she's plotting her nefarious deeds as we speak.

Picture this it's a little after 6am. I wake up for work after hitting the alarm clock a few times and drag myself into the laundry room to get my clothes out of the dryer. Before I ever begin I feed the cats. I know they're hungry. They flood in and get to eating. I start pulling clothes out the dryer. I get about halfway through when suddenly out of the blue Claire goes absolutely freaking spastic. You know how when cats get surprised on hardwood floors their little legs just go everywhere as they try to take off. You know that scrabbling sound as the claws dig into the floor. Okay imagine that on my bad f-ing foot. The pain was pretty intense, more so than it probably should have been. And that early in the morning as soon as I looked down and saw all the blood I started bawling. Just out right huge crocodile tears as I pitifully and somewhat stupidly ask her why why would she hurt me like that. As if she's going to open that fuzzy little mouth and go, 'Well Cindal it's like this..." After I calmed down enough to stop sobbing I got angry. She knew it. She went into the bedroom and hopped up next to DH and started purring, "Look at me I'm cute, I'm innocent, see?" Uh-uh wasn't buying it. So Dh got awakened by Claire getting a rump swat by a crazy crying lady in the wee hours of the morn. After that Claire gave up on the innocent act and did what she should have done in the first place, hide. I cleaned the gouges, put ointment on them, but couldn't get them to stop bleeding before I had to put on my shoe and go to work. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
She would of course pick three days before I'm supposed to go to the foot doctor to do this. It's like she freaking knows. It's my wedding day all over again in that aspect. To make sense of that here's a short flashback.
 2 Days before my wedding. Playing video games trying not to stress, Claire's asleep on my chest. She wakes up and decides to move to the bed, but instead of hopping down and hopping back up she takes the short cut. Up my chest and over my shoulder. Her foot slips and cuts a 7 inch long slice from my collarbone into my cleavage. My wedding dress had a corset top. I managed to mostly cover it up with makeup but it stung like a mother since it hadn't completely scabbed over by the day. I wasn't that mad then. I knew it was an accident. This morning...there was no rhyme or reason for behavior, no excuse.
So now I'm sure the foot doctor is going to be concentrating on my 'mauling' instead of what actually needs attention and I'll have to explain what happened and get lectured on the proper way to take care of a wound blah blah blah. As if this situation wasn't difficult enough. As if I didn't have enough foot pain. Stupid Cat.

Check it, the damage as of this evening. Small cut on my big toe. Puncture in the middle upper area. Three very long cat gouges from the center to the edge, the middle one is pretty darn deep. On the up side just a little bit of bruising left on the outside of the big toe, and on the knot(which rebruised on friday thanks to a 14 hr shift)

Rolling Along

I feel like I'm on a roll. I made my second doctor's appointment yesterday, this one for my poor stupid foot. My appointment is exactly one week from today. Unfortunately my husband won't be able to come due to work, but on the plus side my mother has agreed to come with in his stead. Which is good, because I don't know how ready I am to face a foot doctor on my own. 

A few random foot related thoughts...

• I always found it funny that the doctor who delivered me was Dr. Cripp. Cripp...cripple. Okay maybe I have a slightly twisted sense of humor that skews toward irony.
• My mother had no clue that I had a club foot til I was born. She tells this heartbreaking story of when they finally handed me over and seeing my foot for the first time.
• Even though doctors are pretty much on a consensus that clubfoot is genetic, there is no one else in my traceable family line that has the defect.
• My mother is convinced that two things happened : 1. that she almost lost me early on in the pregnancy  and 2. that my bad foot was 'stuck' under her ribcage for the majority of the pregnancy. According to her it was a constant pressure and pain and that you could even feel something solid there.
• The doctors thought they could fix my foot with the Ponseti method, which includes a series of castings, stretchings, and massage. It didn't work and I had surgery before the age of 1.
• I learned to walk with a cast on.
• My family tells another story about how I didn't cry as a baby. I simply stuck my casted leg out through the slats of the crib and pounded it on the wall until someone came.
• I had arthritis by the age of ten
• One summer I spent my vacation trying to bulk up the bad leg in hopes it would take care of some of my pain. I stepped up onto a stump, kicked trees, rode bicycles, and skipped rope. It didn't really help.
• I didn't own my first pair of regular sneakers until a year ago. Until then I always wore boots, for the ankle support.
• I can not wear heels...period. Even though I not so secretly long to.
• At one time you could visibly see the misalignment of my knees, hips, and even my rib cage. Most of which has all but evened out as time has went by.
• When I was younger my hip used to pop out of place randomly for a few seconds. It was incredibly painful but brief.
• The last time I saw a doctor for my foot I was a freshman in high school. Gym was a requirement and most days I had to have help from friends to reach the school bus after glass. I saw the doctor who did my original surgery. He was pleased with how things had turned out and didn't recommend further treatment and wrote me a note to get out of gym. Which was so worth the dr.s visit.
• That summer one of our horses stepped on my foot. It didn't hurt much at first and I was planning on limping it off....til I looked down that is. I almost went into shock. In the maybe half a minute I tried to ignore it a peach sized lump had grown on the top of my foot. Everything started to go black and I almost fainted. That was until my mom hit me like a linebacker, then I was back to awareness if not more than a little nauseous. We didn't go to the doctor then. I regret that now. Two months later it still hurt and I spent my entire summer pretty well laid up. The weight of water in the swimming pool even hurt.
• Before I started working this new job, my foot was the best it had ever been. I could do fancy yoga poses on it, I was developing a wonderful sense of balance and strength, I was even working on the ability to stand on my tip-toes. Sadly that's all lost now.
• And finally, when I first joined The Bump I remember posting about how I was afraid to postpone having children any longer due to the worry of not being able to run and play with them, or falling while holding them. The ladies (and GM,lol) pretty well reamed me and told me I was vastly over-reacting. Though I wasn't certain then, I am now that they were wrong and my condition is serious and it's progression is definitely a factor in my future whether as a parent or just an active woman.  The next time something like that happens I'll remind myself that they don't live my life and don't understand the problems associated with my condition anymore than they know what its like to be a unicorn, and that I should never feel silly for taking my health seriously.