Where did this come from!?

I know that many of you had no idea that I was even struggling with my health and you might be asking "where did this come from?"  Well, the truth is, I didn't know I was struggling until about 2 weeks ago.  As soon as Brian's tax season was over we enjoyed a WONDERFUL 10 day family vacation!  We spent time in St. George with my Grandparents and my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins.  We then spent 5 very fun and happy days in Disneyland with our 3 sweet kids. 

On day 5 in Disneyland a pain that I had been having in my right inner thigh intensified and my chest started to feel tight.  I was a little concerned about it because of my previous history with blood clots so I uttered several prayers asking my Father in Heaven to allow me to finish up my vacation and I promised that as soon as we returned I would visit my doctor.  He answered my prayers and besides a little added numbness in my fingers and toes we enjoyed the rest of our trip.

I kept my promise and 1st thing Monday morning, after our return I called my doctor.  He scheduled me for a pulmonary CT scan and an ultrasound of my two legs.  The objective was to look for a blood clot.  Good news!  No blood clots!  I was happy there were no clots but frustrated all the same because I was still in pain.  The next couple of days went on the same.  No big changes, I even ran 3 miles on Tuesday for a workout! 

I started to feel a few more pains here and there, all in random places in my body, all with the same kind of stinging feeling.  Things turned south Friday afternoon when I started feeling tingly all over, numbness and dizziness on top of my already mentioned pain.  Unfortunately my doctors office wasn't open so I headed to the local Urgent Care to have them just check my vitals (blood pressure, oxygen, etc).  While there they drew blood and did several different studies for things like anemia, infection and thyroid problems.  Everything came back normal!  Yay...I am a healthy person!  I took Saturday slow and easy.  That didn't stop me from working on a few of my projects (organizing my kids' closets) and laundry.  By they time the evening had come my left arm was in a lot of pain and felt completely numb from my shoulder to fingers.  Brian and I said goodnight and soon after I laid my head on my pillow I felt the scariest feeling, I felt someone was pouring icy hot through my head and entire body.  This feeling popped me right out of bed, I started shaking uncontrollably and literally having a panic attack.  Brian gave me a priesthood blessing and tried to calm me down by rubbing on my back.  We debated going to the ER or not.   I was eventually calm enough, after my blessing and an hour or more of processing and calming down, to fall asleep.  Later that night, after Levi had awoken me for a feeding my left leg was completely asleep and pained at the hip and everything started all over again.  I got through that one, took a hot bath and eventually was able to fall back asleep for 1/2 and hour before the kids woke up.  Sunday I felt okay and we all got ready for church.  I was okay until I sat down on the pews at church and another one of my "attacks" came on.  I spent the rest of church pacing the halls and trying to get through it.  I had one more "attack" that night and once again considered going to the hospital, but we worked through it.

Monday morning, now a week since I 1st went in for the CT and Ultrasound, I called my Dr again.  He was booked Monday and I was able to get in Tuesday morning.  At that appointment he was considering that I might have MS.  He thought it was a long shot, but nonetheless he felt we needed to get an MRI of my brain.  Needless to say I was emotional and a little bit fretful of the implications of having MS.  I was able to find enough strength and sense of mind to know that I wasn't diagnosed yet and there was no reason to worry.  I was done with my MRI at about 3 on Wednesday, after picking up my kids and visiting at my dear friend Christy's house I headed home for just a second to pick up a coupon and go get some pizza.  When I got home there was a message from my Dr.  "Kara this is Dr Morton, I got your MRI results and I need you come in tomorrow for a followup MRI and I need you to call my cell phone right away."  HELLOOO...how often does a Dr give you is personal cell phone number?"  I called him right away. 

Dr Morton explained to me that there was no concern with my brain.  But, when you get an MRI of your brain you also happen to catch a glimpse of the very top part of your cervical spine (neck).  He explained to me that there was something very concerning on the top of my spine and that he would have to get a better idea of how big it was by doing the MRIs of my spine. 

Well, Wednesday was our 1st dose of reality and I'll let your imaginations decide how that might have felt.  At this point we knew there was something and that the Drs were very concerned and felt urgency.  We didn't know what it was...

After another Priesthood blessing by my husband and our home teacher Brother McCracken I was once again able to eventually calm down and get through the night.  My anxiety had reached an all time high and I slept about 3 hours that night, I had stopped being able to eat because of it, to add to it Andrew woke up with a fever of 103 and a Croupy cough. 

This brings us to yesterday.  Diagnosis day...