Hospital

I suffer from ulcerative colitis.  I've hardly been in remission since I was diagnosed 15 years ago but I thought I was doing really well until they decided that my medication was at a high risk of causing liver damage because of the silly way my body metabolises it.  So it got changed and I got a really bad flare up and was in hospital for over a week.

I have to say that out of all my hospital visits it was the most pleasant.  There was NO queue at a&e (that was quite shocking with it being a bank holiday weekend but I guess the DIY accident prone crowd aren't as active in central London) and I was in a ward within 2 hours of walking in the door.
I did feel a bit like I was in an episode of House, as the attack came on so quickly they decided that I must have had an infection, then as my blood work was coming back still squiffy it must be some sort of virus.  So 2 days of IV antibiotics followed by 6 of IV steroids and the start of a course of anti-virals before they decided that the underlying cause probably didn't matter afterall so just to stick with the tried and tested steroids until my flare was under control and I could go home.
They put me in isolation for the first few days, which was quite nice but I was glad to be in a ward with people to talk to.  Unfortunately the old lady in the bed opposite me died in her sleep that first night.  She was meant to have gone home that day.
I'm feeling that this is not sounding as pleasant a stay as I innitially intended it to but I really needed the break.  In hindsight, I probably hadn't recovered from being ill over Easter.  The year 13s were coming up to their exam so I really pushed myself to be at work before I should have and kept going through the side effects of my new meds.  Being actually stuck in the hospital meant I couldn't feel bad about doing nothing.  I missed the exam in the end but as I had done all the prep the week before a teacher managed to cover me and it went well.
Still off work, my head is like cotton wool, feeling light headed verging on dizzy half of the time, hoping it's a side effect that will wear off soon.
Emotionally I've been a bit all over the place.  It just seems a never ending stream of drama at the moment.

To top it all off my gran is starting chemotherapy tomorrow.

Here's to a peaceful patch!

Hormonally Sound

It's official.  My hormones are in lovely balance.  I'm not early menopausal, don't have PCOS, am ovulating alright and don't have high testosterone or low estrogen levels.

So why am I having such irregular (and stupidly long) cycles?  It's a mystery.  I'll be getting a scan at some point in the next few months but my GP doesn't expect it to reveal anything.  To be honest, I don't think she'd have sent me for a scan if I hadn't had a loss.  Not this early in investigations anyway.  She seemed rather unconcerned but I guess that's how they stop patients from getting stressed unnecessarily.

I'm concerned.  Maybe that's part of the problem.  Living under constant stress can put one's cycle off and living without one's child is pretty damn stressful so maybe it is just stress.  I am happy that there is no problem there but it's frustrating that my body isn't behaving itself for no apparent reason.

These last three weeks have been so long.  Since Griffin's birthday, it feels like the days have dragged, but I don't know where they have gone.  It feels like forever and no time at all.  In fact it all feels like forever and no time at all.  I guess that's normal because I've read similar in other blogs.

I don't know what to make of it all but the anti anxiety drugs I started a couple of weeks back have started to kick in so I'm hoping my anxiety and stress will reduce to manageable levels and I can actually think straight.

On a lighter note I heard a guy in a cafe telling a child (about 9) how he wasn't going to be allowed sweets in the house any more when his little brother was born because they wanted to teach the younger one that raisins were sweets.  So the older brother would have to go outside to eat sweets and to hide them in the bottom of his bag if he had to bring them in the house.

I couldn't help but draw the comparison to smoking, obviously Haribo is the new drug that all the cool kids are doing.

Now What?

A year...

I did think that I was doing well in the lead up to Griffin's birthday.  I cried a bit the day before but on the actual day, I felt ok.  Sad but also that I'd come so far that I thought I could put one foot in front of the other and keep on moving forward.  However, I'm slightly falling apart.  I had a really destructive turn on thursday (b-day+1) where I got really (really really) drunk and it must have brought something up because I've been off ever since.

To the point that I went to the walk-in mental health unit for help.  They were really good.  I should be getting counselling in the next few weeks and they said I can go back whenever.  I'm feeling a bit better by the mere fact that I've taken action and someone unrelated to me is taking how I feel seriously.

It's such an anti climax.  There's not much else to say.

Not a Rare Condition

I had a comment on a previous post about my obstetric cholestasis(OC), about how rare it is.

This is a very popular misconception.  OC is not a rare condition, it affects 1 in 200 pregnancies.  This may sound like quite a small proportion but when you consider that roughly 1900 babies are born in the UK every day, it turns into quite a lot of people.  When you consider that it is routine to inject babies with vitamin K at birth which can prevent a brain bleed in 1 in 10,000 babies, we are prescribed antenatal vitamins with folic acid to prevent spina bifida which can occur in 1 in 1000 pregnancies, it seems unforgivable that OC, a relatively easy condition to control and manage, has such a low profile.

Having OC does not automatically lead on to a stillbirth, in a properly managed pregnancy the risks of stillbirth are the same as in a non OC pregnancy.  The important bit of that sentence is 'properly managed'.  If you do not know there is a problem you cannot take it to your healthcare professional and you cannot be 'properly managed'.  If your medical team ignore your concerns or are unaware of up to date research in the area, it cannot be 'properly' managed.

All the baby books and sites say that itching in pregnancy is normal.  It's the skin stretching.  It could be a symptom of a very rare condition that causes itching but will subside after birth.  (Lets play down the risks!!!)

The problem with OC is the lack of knowledge about it.  I have heard stories of women who have scratched the skin raw because of this itch and doctors have point blank refused to do the simple blood test that is required to diagnose it. 

They don't know why it causes stillbirth.  The stillborn babies have no detectable problems.  They just stopped living. In a post mortem it comes up as 'unexplained death'.  As they cannot as yet determine why OC causes stillbirth there are some people still (I'm talking consultant obstetricians here) who do not believe it does.

http://www.ocsupport.org.uk/   For further information.

Remember scratching can be more than just an itch.

Why do they ignore Unsubscribe?

How on earth am I STILL getting baby related emails?

I unsubscribe to every single one I get and have done for almost a year now.  Do they just ignore you?  There have been some that I emailed and explained the situation and yet I am still receiving them.  It was really upsetting for the first while but now I just get angry with them.

Bah!!!!