Sometimes God makes things clear using odd circumstances, weird chains of events, random people, random thoughts. Sometimes God calls us to be champions for ourselves, our loved ones or people we barely know.
I shared again last week that my word for 2020 was gratitude. Well in the last three months God has provided lots of opportunities for me to show if I was going to stick with gratitude or allow circumstances to get the better of my attitude. I am so grateful for Him revealing definitive answers today after three LONG months of questions.
Please take into account with what I am about to share that the last five months has been in the middle of our chaotic world and a crazy, insane time at the County Treasurer’s Office.
March 7th right before the world in Montgomery County and in Texas turned upside down, I ran the biggest race of my life. I ran a half marathon in less than 2:40, and had lost over 20 lbs in the past year. For the next several weeks, I kept running about 10 miles a week. Around the end of April, I started struggling with fatigue. As a person who has always thrived on 5-6 hours of sleep at night and still ran circles around others, I was unable to get enough sleep. I would sleep 8-9 hours and still feel exhausted.
On May 2nd, I passed out at the dinner table, and Mr. Unicorn, himself, made me go to the ER. They quickly determined it was simply a vasovagal response to taking a big gulp of milk with dinner that pressed on the vagal nerve, causing the fainting. But they did want me to follow up with my GP.
For the next couple of days, I continued to be fatigued and experiencing chest tightness which led to following up with my GP which lead to following up with a cardiologist. The cardiologist really blew me off, but still did some baseline tests, all of which were good.
So I kept pressing forward. I mean we were in the middle of crazy times, maybe it was just wearing on me. I mean, online school, new finance system, government shut down and mandates, who wouldn’t be tired.
When Mr. Unicorn went in for his sinus surgery, I was blessed with conversation and coffee with a dear friend who works at the hospital. After telling her all of how I was feeling, my heart rate monitor results on my Apple Watch, my exhaustion, lack of ability to even walk 2 miles with the girls, she insisted I get a second opinion and helped get me in the next day with a different cardiologist.
He listened completely and didn’t brush me off. He agreed with my lengthy family history of Atrial Fibrillation, that an event monitor was wise but also highly encouraged getting my hormone levels checked as well. So a week later I had been to the gynecologist to get levels checked, and received a wireless event monitor for 4 weeks. While wearing the annoying monitor, it was discovered that my Vitamin D was in normal range but probably not in the optimal zone and that my thyroid was suddenly low.
As we started meds for those, I asked if we could check for anemia. I explained to my nurse practitioner, Ginger, maybe I was anemic too, since Rebekah was, but how Rebekah’s was found through her stored iron not her hemoglobin. The triple whammy of Low Thyroid, Vit D and Iron would definitely explain the now month and a half long fatigue. She agreed to test for it when we checked my thyroid in 6 weeks.
Rolling forward to late July, cardio diagnosed me with irregular PACs (Premature atrial contractions) and I was waiting on bloodwork results on the thyroid and anemia.
Ginger was thrilled with my thyroid levels on the meds, but was baffled by my ferritin results. I was not anemic, as we had both predicted. Quite the opposite. My stored iron was more than double the high side of the normal range. She asked another colleague about it because she had never seen it. The only thing they could find was that I might have hemochromatosis. I had blood drawn again and started looking for a hematologist. The second set of bloodwork confirmed the higher levels were not a fluke, and my transferrin saturation % was actually at 84%, way over the normal.
Having now done a hemochromatosis DNA Panel, today I received confirmation that all of my issues - the PACs, low thyroid, the fatigue, are all explainable by a diagnosis of hemochromatosis.
Gratitude - here’s where that gratitude comes in. The Lord was so good. He gave me a completely minor, non event really, in the fainting that got me more tuned in with my body. He gave me knowledge through Rebekah’s concussion about stored iron being a sign of anemia. And while I am not anemic, because of me being my own champion and having the knowledge He gave me, we found the root of my symptoms for the last three months.
AND may have found the root of my family’s history of AFib. Discovering this genetic mutation in the end could make a major medical impact on my life and my girls lives, by potential prevention of AFib. All because my body presented with symptoms early and I continued to try and figure out what is wrong!!
Thank you, thank you Lord for making me, Mrs. Unicorn to match my Mr. Unicorn! I love how God has continued to show Himself to us in the field of medicine and genetics. More to come on our now Double Unicorn Journey!!!
- Melanie
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