Monday, July 20, 2015

Pregnancy, Diabetes, Death of a Friend, & now... Melanoma


A friend of my recently posted this quote by anonymous:
"An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backwards. When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it is going to launch you into something great. Focus and keep aiming."

Pregnancy, Diabetes, Death of a Friend, AND now Melanoma. REALLY? Just really, I ask? Somehow it is all so much to take in that I just have to laugh. Thank goodness for a positive personality, because otherwise I may just be at the bottom of a lake somewhere...

Getting pregnant was exciting, and while we planned it, we didn't plan for it to happen immediately...like the first time we tried. (I was sure it would take at least 6-months.) So in our not-well-thought-through "planning" we found ourselves pregnant and in the middle of a house renovation.  Through horrible morning sickness, mood swings, and generally disliking being pregnant, I pushed through and we kept working on our house. Luckily, we were able to move into the house in February, and now we are 98% finished with it. We are currently tying up lose ends on the house as I wait to go into labor. We are cutting it close, but it has mostly worked out so I am not complaining. (I just really want air conditioning before the baby comes!)

At about 30-weeks into my pregnancy I was randomly diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I am not in any of the risk groups for getting it, it was just a random, freak diagnosis. Freak diagnosis or not, I have gestational diabetes and it has thrown me for a complete loop. It was weird and scary to get the news and I cried for a whole day. Since then, I have come to terms with it, learned how to take my blood sugar, and now I eat a super clean diet consisting of low carb and low sugar. While I have lost weight at the end of my pregnancy rather than gaining it, I feel healthy and more importantly the baby is healthy. All is well now in my diabetic life.

Just as I got over being pregnant while renovating our house, then got past horrible morning sickness, and adjusted to a diabetic lifestyle, I then had to lay a very close friend to rest. She fought cancer for 3-years and while the end was predictable, it was still horribly sad. It is hard to say goodbye to a friend at such a young age. It has also been extremely hard for me to process her death as I deal with pregnancy, house renovation, and diabetes. Prioritizing what to focus on and what to process when, is becoming increasingly difficult for me.

So to add a cherry on top of this mess-of-a-life-ice-cream sunday...I was just diagnosed with malignant melanoma. (*pause for loud laughter*) It was found in a mole above my left eye. They won't operate until the baby is born, but they are saying that they will have to take the majority of my eyebrow. (The dermatologist said, "plenty of people get tattooed eyebrows!")  Luckily, (which at this point, I'll take any kind of luck) they say that it is only stage-1 so I will not have to follow up with any kind of chemo or radiation. So now I wait for this baby to be born (any day!), so that I can get surgery to remove a chunk of my eyelid and eyebrow, so that hopefully I can be free of skin cancer and get on with my life with a newborn baby.

At this point I find life purely humorous. I no longer know how to process anything. Processing has gone out the window and it has been replaced with joking and laughter. I guess humor is how I deal with things...? Either way, I am focusing on the quote at the top of this page in hoping that even though I have been dragged back in life with these difficulties, hopefully my misfortunes will soon launch me forward into something great. "Focus and keep aiming." (It's ok, it's ok, it's ok)


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