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Conditionally Speaking…

Welcome back!
I’ve talked specifically about a few of the conditions I live with, but I thought today I’d give you an overview of the 13 different health issues that make up who I am. Some are serious, some are just an inconvenience, but all of them are a part of me. Here’s the list:

  • Chronic Pain
  • Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
  • Fibromyalgia / Myofascial Pain
  • Osteoarthritis (in all my major joints)
  • Forestier’s Disease (aka D.I.S.H.)
  • Type 2 Diabetes (on insulin)
  • Trigeminal Neuralgia
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Gastroparesis
  • Internal Adhesions/Scar Tissue/Chronic Pelvic Pain
  • High Cholesterol
  • Brachydactyly Type E
  • Raynaud’s Disease
  • Hypothyroidism
  • Vulvar Intraepithelial Neoplasia 3 (VIN 3) – now healed

So I’ve talked about my Chronic Pain from Fibromyalgia and Osteoarthritis, and when I say I have arthritis in all my major joints, I’m serious. I have it in my shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers, my cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, left hip (right hip has been replaced), knees, ankles and toes. Some areas like my left hip and right knee are quite serious and will need replacing, but the rest I’ll have to live with. Meanwhile, my thoracic spine has a different type of bone condition called Forestier’s Disease or D.I.S.H., which stands for Diffuse (Widespread) Idiopathic (Of Unknown Cause) Skeletal (Referring to the Skeleton) Hyperostosis (Excessive Growth of Bone). It forms in the shape of a bone spur, but instead of a normal spur that could be removed, it looks more like melted candle wax on the spine, so nothing can be done about it. I also have regular bone spurs on my right hand – I had one removed from inside my pointer finger as it grew through a tendon, and there is a second one on the outside of my middle finger growing through the knuckle. Both have been very painful and interfere(d) with typing and writing. Of course, I have weird fingers anyway…which leads to another thing on my list.
Brachydactyly.  Pronounced Brackee Dack Til ee, there are several types of this disorder and I have Type E.  It’s described as such, from Wikipedia:
Brachydactyly (Greek βραχύς = “short” plus δάκτυλος = “finger”), is a medical term which literally means “shortness of the fingers and toes” (digits). The shortness is relative to the length of other long bones and other parts of the body. Brachydactyly is an inherited, usually dominant trait. It most often occurs as an isolated dysmelia, but can also occur with other anomalies as part of many congenital syndromes.

I was born missing the bone as shown in Type E, but it wasn’t apparent until I was about 5 or 6 years old and the ring fingers on both hands stopped “growing”. Each one is about a half inch longer than my pinkie, and that’s it. When I make a fist, there is no knuckle formation either.  You can see the flatness in the photo beside my hand.
 
People always think my ring finger is swollen, but it’s actually the extra skin that would have covered the finger if it had grown to full length. My feet are the same way as well:

I can’t actually bend any of my toes individually – if I try to bend them, they all bend at the same time.  The second and third toe are mildly webbed on each foot and then you can see how severely affected the “ring toe” is affected. That’s because of the missing bone in the foot, just like the ring finger. The pinkie toe is basically normal. Each foot is the same.
Now because this is a genetic condition, I was quite interested to see if my kids or grandkids would have the same thing, but no…I’m the only one who has presented with it. I was adopted at birth and always wondered if anyone in my birth family had it too. I was able to find my birth mom approximately 15 years ago, and again, I am the only one on her side of the family with this condition. She doesn’t know about my birth Father’s side, but I believe I may have tracked down a family member for him and I’m just waiting to see if she contacts me. His name is Arvay Bernath and he was born and raised in Nanoose Bay, BC on Vancouver Island. He dated my mom Bonnie Rebecca Anderson from Parksville, BC on the Island and they were engaged when she became pregnant with me. Her dad didn’t approve and so they broke up and I was put up for adoption. Arvay appears to have passed away in 1997, but from information, I found on MyHeritage.com there is a relative named Lily Bernath who started a search page. I left her my contact info, but she hadn’t been on the page since 2017, so who knows if she’ll get my info or not. At any rate, he or his family may or may not have Brachydactyly too, or I could just be an anomaly.
So, what else is on that list. Ah yes, the ever lovely Gastroparesis, which means (again according to Wikipedia):
Gastroparesis (GP also called delayed gastric emptying) is a medical condition consisting of a paresis (partial paralysis) of the stomach, resulting in food remaining in the stomach for an abnormally long time. Normally, the stomach contracts to move food down into the small intestine for additional digestion. The vagus nerve controls these contractions. Gastroparesis may occur when the vagus nerve is damaged and the muscles of the stomach and intestines do not properly function. Food then moves slowly or stops moving through the digestive tract.
Now, the way they determine if you have this or not is through something called a motility test. In my case, they wanted me off ALL of my meds first to make sure they weren’t contributing to the problem, so for 2 days prior to my test I had to quit my medications cold turkey. That included my meds for Fibromyalgia, my anti-psychotics AND my opioid narcotic for pain. Do you have any idea what going through withdrawal is like? It was horrendous. I had the shakes, the runs, I couldn’t eat or sleep, and for those 2 days, I alternated between thinking I was dying and wanting to die.
On the day of the test, I went to the hospital to where the Nuclear testing is done. I knew that I was going to be eating an egg sandwich with a radioactive tracer in it and that tracer would be monitored through a series of special x-rays, but I explained to the nurse that everything I ate was immediately running right through me like water. She was so sweet…she “reserved” me a private bathroom, brought me my sandwich and told me to eat as much as I could while I sat there. Talk about embarrassing!!! It’s embarrassing writing about it!!! But, I managed just over 3/4’s of it, which she said was enough. She brought me into the x-ray room where there was a gurney to lay on, and then gave me a warm blanket. The first pictures were taken every 2 minutes, so I just sat. Then they took them every 5 minutes apart, then 10 minutes apart, then 15, then 30 and finally 2 pictures 1 hour apart each. In between, I slept on the gurney, and my nurse brought me as many warm blankets as I wanted. She also brought me a cold wet face cloth for my forehead. When it was all over, I gave her a big hug and thanked her for being so kind. Then I took my medications asap!!!!
The tests showed that I have a moderate degree of low motility so my food sits in my stomach for a long period of time before moving on to the intestines. This explains why I always look bloated and pregnant. There are medications that can be taken, but I’ve asked Dr. Leong if we can just hold off and wait on that for now. This is more of an inconvenience than anything right now, and I just don’t want any more drugs in my system than I absolutely need. If the problem becomes hugely bothersome, we’ll revisit it, but in the meantime, I’ll just try to watch what I eat, drink more water and try and exercise a bit more.
Which leads to Hypothyroidism. For a long time, I assumed that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was the only reason for my constant exhaustion, as my Thyroid numbers always came back normal on blood tests done every three months. One day though, my thyroid went rogue and those numbers were crazy. I had been especially tired…like dragging my ass tired, needed toothpicks to keep my eyes open tired

Oohhh, that is NOT a good look on me!!! Dr. Leong put me on meds and I could feel a difference in a very short period of time. On my next 3 month course of blood work, everything was back to normal, so now I take Synthroid on a daily basis for the rest of my life, to ensure I have a properly working system. So glad that was an easy fix!!
The other few things on the list are all fairly minor. I have had a number of pelvic surgeries over the years, so there is a lot of internal scar tissue left over that has attached itself to things like my bladder and bowel, etc. There are occasions when I move a certain way, and those adhesions stretch very painfully – it feels like velcro being ripped apart except it’s my body doing the ripping. It takes my breath away sometimes, it’s so painful, but it only lasts for a minute or two, then it’s gone. The High Cholesterol is managed easily with medication (too much ice cream!). The Reynauds is something that happens when my fingers and toes are exposed to the cold…they go bone white and lose sensation, so I have to be careful when getting things from the freezer or being in cooler windy weather, etc.
And finally, the Vulvar Intraepithelial Neoplasia 3 (VIN 3) which is now healed…well, we talked about that in the post entitled I’ve Got The Lady Garden Blues. 
So there you have it. Thirteen separate conditions with one healed and Chronic Pain is a part of 7 of them. It’s a tough road to walk, I have to be honest. I live with pain 24/7 and have for almost 30 years now. I’m going to do a separate blog post about my Fibromyalgia because that’s been my predominant pain for so many years, but suffice to say that you have to be mighty strong to live like this, to get through the day to day of actually living in pain. I know some people who just couldn’t. They tried so, so hard, but in the end, their pain was too much for them, and they took their own lives.
I’m a huge advocate for assisted suicide for people who live with severe, unretractable pain. We take better care of our pets when they are hurting than we do our humans, and I think that is just plain wrong. I believe every human has the right to choose to die with dignity and I wish our Government would get on board with this. I know things are happening, and we’re getting closer, but it’s not well within reach for everyone.
Thanks for indulging me and letting me share more about me with you. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them here. And remember…
There is always hope!



This post first appeared on There Is Always Hope, please read the originial post: here

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