A Bit of Background.

Slightly over a year ago I never knew a simple meet and greet with a new doctor would change my life as I knew it.

I was passionately playing competitive roller derby in a league I had started with a dear friend, newly living with Zed, my (then) boyfriend, his 14 year old son, and spending my days searching for that unicorn of work/life/blended family balance.

The morning of my 28th birthday in late July I went in for the first time to see my new doctor. I woke up with a nagging pain I chalked up to sleeping funny on my Mom’s couch the night before, and went about my day as usual.

The meeting went well with all the usual questions / horse and pony show until I got up to leave and he asked me what had happened to my leg – I shared my theory and nonchalantly shrugged my shoulders. My doctor said I was probably right, and while he doesn’t normally do this on this first meetings, have a hop on the table…

Apparently appendicitis can present as sciatic pain, and it can take little to no time for an appendix to burst and release infection into the blood stream causing something called septicemia; a very serious, life-threatening condition if not dealt with immediately.

The following 10 days were a blur of emergency departments, large medical terms I didn’t understand, and copious amounts of IV’s, blood tests, CT scans, MRI’s and uncertain fear.

Meanwhile, my poor (then) boyfriend Zed, never once left my side; sleeping in uncomfortable, plastic chairs for days at a time, waiting on the ‘safe’ side of the radioactive testing rooms, listening to various doctors giving ‘their’ opinions on the anomaly that is me, relaying updates to my Mom, and trying his best to maintain an outward calm as to not let me catch on to the full gravity of the situation. Since then, and after another more recent medical adventure, Zed became my husband. Zed is more than I could of ever dreamed of, hoped for, and I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve him but I’ll take it 😉 Zed is far from perfect – but so very succinctly perfect for me.

Months of antibiotics, a year of constant ongoing tests, seemingly endless new, vague symptoms and ailments, very little answers, and barrage of different specialists later – an insignificant looking rash was the final cinch on something concrete; Dermatomyositis.

Throughout the medical chaos we still had a complicated new family to build and maintain, filled with teenage angst and normal new relationship ‘stuff’. There were tense times of uncertainty, sanity-stretching tribulations, and trials of various blending – but that’s another post, for another time.

-Emm