First Major Flare

First Major Flare

            We now jump forward to 2012. As stated in the previous post, Melissa had been in remission for 2 straight years after being diagnosed. Unfortunately things changed and she became very sick very quickly. After she had her flare, she did move up her dosage of the Azacol in hopes of getting back in remission. This didn’t seem to do the trick, so she started taking Mercaptopurine. We were a little hesitant just because of the daunting side effects (such as cancer). We decided it was needed so she started on that as well. She still was not feeling well and losing a lot of fluids and having a lot of blood in her stool. She was losing a lot of weight and didn’t have a lot of energy for anything. We specifically remember a day where she was awake for about 2 hours. We also think back to the numerous ER visits to get fluids. The doctor then decided to start her on the dreaded steroids. Don’t get me wrong these drugs do the trick and they help out a ton, but along with getting Melissa better her face started puffing up. This of course is one of the side effects of the medicine and the main one that Melissa was concerned about. I tried to put the picture of her on here but she refused. It honestly looked like she was wearing a fat suit. She had this little tiny body and then bam she had big cheeks and a double chin.

            

            All of this was going on and lasted for about a year.  She was able to get everything under control. At this point we moved into the year of 2013 and she was doing pretty good and steady. In May of this year we received some pretty exciting news. Melissa was PREGNANT! We had been trying basically since she had started feeling better and we weren’t having much luck. It took us quite a while to get pregnant but that’s a different story. We had done it and we were expecting to have our little boy. Like I mentioned in the previous post Melissa is unlucky so while pregnant she had a couple of complications including a rare disorder called cholestasis. This is where her gull bladder doesn’t get rid of the bile’s fast enough so she gets very itchy. Yes it was quite strange. We then had our son early, at about 29 weeks and he was born at only 2 pounds 4 ounces. This also is another story, but it was the scariest most challenging experience to date. This blew the UC out of the water. Just as a side note we almost lost him the day he was born but now he is a healthy (wild) 2 year old and luckily he has no health issues!

While being pregnant we were terrified that Melissa was going to get out of remission, but we were lucky enough that she stayed healthy! The doctor said that he had seen where pregnancy could sometimes help the condition and avoid flare ups. Lucky us, we found out we were expecting again the following May. We now have learned to have extreme caution in this month. I forgot to mention that we had visited a infertility specialist while trying to get pregnant and we were told we had a 4% chance each month to conceive. When you consider that number we thought we would be fine after we had our first. We thought this little guy was a miracle all around and 4% chance, c’mon there is no way. Well it happened. Melissa was basically pregnant for 2 straight years, obviously a little shorter given the early birth of our son. Following in the footsteps of her first pregnancy, she remained healthy. We have always felt so blessed that we didn’t have to worry about this while our children were growing and developing our 2 little angels. Melissa jokes that I have a ticket into heaven because I have dealt with her sickness and all of this over the last couple years. I constantly remind her that we are in this journey together and it’s just a part of the plan for us. What she doesn’t know is that I know that she has a ticket into heaven because of all the trials she has had to deal with. She has had so many unfortunate, unlucky things happen to her over her lifetime. I have never met anyone so resilient, so courageous, and so caring. The majority of people would find themselves in doubt and in a dark place dealing with what she has. She stays so strong and relies on her faith and her children to keep her positive and loving. It’s quite amazing and reminds me why I decided to marry this person.