So close I can...taste it??

You know, I have had many colds in my life.  I have been an allergy sufferer since I was old enough to say the word allergy. I am the queen of sinus headaches. None of these things are new to me. And on rare occasions, I have a cold/allergy attack/sinus infection that is so harsh that I lose my taste for a day or two. And those two days are the longest, most miserable days, with time spent willing myself into breathing, tasting, or smelling anything. Then, magically, I take my medicine; drink plenty of fluids, rest until I can’t rest anymore, and my taste returns. The world is right-side up once again.

So. WHY ISN’T THAT HAPPENING NOW?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But seriously. It has been almost FOUR MONTHS since I have smelled or tasted. And at first, it was annoying. Then I actually went through a small phase of anger. And now? Depression has set in. Y’all, I’m serious when I say I am actually really, really sad about this. I am a southern girl. A big, hearty, sassy southern girl who was raised in a family where Sunday isn’t Sunday without roast beef, and chicken isn’t chicken unless it’s fried. Raised to know that when I go to a restaurant and order a sweet tea and the waitress says, “Is Unsweet okay?” then I assume there is a conspiracy theory taking place and I must vacate immediately.

Being diagnosed as diabetic this past year, I certainly have already come to terms with my eating habits. I’ve learned that no, drinking a pitcher of sweet tea on Sunday to wash down momma’s apple pie is no longer a past time I can enjoy. But I CAN still eat, I can still enjoy my momma’s cooking, and I can learn to control my portions. All of this I have done, like a champ! I am the portion control queen now. I read every label of every food I eat to determine what a proper serving is. For example:

1        1. Did you know that a serving size of Doritos is 11 chips? ELEVEN!! Hahahahahaha No, seriously. They put it on the bag y’all.

2   2.     A proper serving size of pasta is 1 cup, COOKED. Not an entire plate full, covered in parmesean and mozzarella and meatballs. Nope. Just one little scoop basically.

3   3.  I can have ONE slice of pizza and it’s 30g carbs. That’s half my allotted carb intake for an entire meal.

Now yes, I realize that the items listed above are all carb heavy no-no’s, so I eat them few and far between. But those are the types of food I have to measure. I mean, there really is no need to measure out my grilled chicken and broccoli,  just eat the crap out of it and assume you just lost a pound (if nothing else you’ll lose a pound in tears when you cry an hour later  because you’re starving. Preach. #reallife)

So yes, I’ve changed my relationship with food. I’ve lost 40 pounds, and since I’ve been pregnant I’ve lost 7 more, and that is awesome! But now, for four long, dreary months, in addition to my nice portion controlled eating, I have completely lost all sense of taste and smell. So the few, small enjoyments I get from food are now gone. Just…gone. And I am sad.

I am still having cravings. I am fully convinced this child controls both my appetite and my food selection, and I will never believe otherwise. When I am opposed to eating something, it goes from, “That doesn’t sound good right now” to simply seeing a picture of said food and going, “HOLY MOTHER OF….*gag*”. 

My cravings work the same way. I go from, “Hmm, this sounds good for dinner babe!” to “STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW AND DRIVE TO KROGER AND BUY MY GRAHAM CRACKERS OR I WILL SUFFOCATE YOU IN YOUR SLEEP” 

So imagine what it feels like to bite into said food, and get no satisfaction. I get no, “Mmm that is SO good! Just what I wanted!” and instead am left with, “I’m sorry, I just drank a glass of water and it tasted exactly the same as this cheeseburger, so I’m going to go cry now.”

And when I say I can’t smell, I truly mean I cannot smell. I have shoved my nose into bottles of hot sauce, containers of Vick’s Vapor Rub, and jars of Cayenne pepper. Nothing. Not even a good ol’ fashioned eye watering.

The other day I spent a good long while making a nice yummy fall dinner for my hubby and I. I made Perogi casserole and Apple Spice Cake. I let it simmer in the crock pot all day, and when I got home from work all I wanted was to walk in and be hit in the face with that slap yo’momma amazing smell of Fall goodness. Nothing. If I hadn’t personally turned on the crockpot, I would have had no idea that there was even food in my house. So you can imagine my disdain when my hubby later dubbed this as the best dessert he has ever had in his life and how he wants this to be fed to him before he dies, and all I could do was sit there and sip my water and nibble on the apples that tasted like…well, water.

I’m not seeking advice from anyone, because there is none to be given. My OB/GYN and the head of Neurology at UK have both concluded to shrug their shoulders and tell me to hope for the best. I have an appointment with an ENT in three weeks, but don’t hold much hope in that appointment. ALL natural remedies have been tried, multiple times, many of them daily. When I say ALL, please believe me that I truly mean ALL. Unless there is some magical unicorn out there who delivers 47 essential oils on a stick coated in cayenne, glued together with Vicks’s, administered via neti pot, and delivered by dancing jalapeño peppers, then I have no interest in your shenanigans. 

I write this post, simply put, to be a big baby. I am just ready to stomp my foot on the ground and kick and scream and throw my taste tantrum because I am frustrated. I want to TASTE. I want to SMELL. But I know, I knoooooooooooooooooooooooooow. I am mommy. I have to take one for team ninja baby. I have to be strong. This, too, shall pass. The Lord is my Shepherd. But I WANT TO TASTE!!! It has been MONTHS. I don’t even remember how bad my dogs smell, or what my own perfume smells like, I’ve never smelled my new tropical fruit shampoo, and I’ve never tasted the new apple spice cake recipe. I don’t get to hug my hubby and smell his cologne, or even just walk outside and smell the rain. It is a lonely, devoid place, and I am sad. I am already sad because what if it doesn’t go away and I don’t even get to smell my sweet little baby covered in baby lotion and smelling like a tiny little dream?

Ways to kill a southern girl one day at a time:

1     1. Take away her taste and smell.

 2. End of list.

Going blind? Eat a cheeseburger.

Well y’all. I can’t. I just can’t even with all this. This baby, this tiny, doesn’t even weigh ONE pound baby is causing my body to act a fool. A FOOL y’all! But I still love it.

So on Tuesday afternoon I went in for my weekly check-up with my Ob/Gyn. I have to be seen every week in some form because I have a high risk pregnancy. I have Type 2 diabetes, and during the pregnancy I have acquired high blood pressure issues, so they of course are watching me closely for Toxemia/Pre-Eclampsia. Every week I pee in a cup, get my blood taken, get examined, get an ultrasound done, etc. I am used to it at this point. On Monday night, I made the mistake of telling my hubby he could sit this one out and take care of some things at work because it was just a “routine visit”.

Big fat mouth.

Well, on Tuesday when I left my office I stopped by the house to let my three pups out first. On the drive home, I began to get odd spots in my vision. No matter how much I blinked, I had these complete blockages in my eyes, first in the form of blurs and then in the form of white flashes. I kept describing it as that moment after someone takes your picture with the flash on, and you look away blinking but you can’t quite see for a couple minutes until the flash disappears from your vision. Upon later googling, I found these images that look exactly like what I saw:

Weird, right? I was freaked out, and called my hubby telling him he may have to drive me after all. But then after about an hour, everything calmed down and went back to quasi-normal. I went to the doctor, was taken straight in, and decided to tell her what happened. Well, mind you, I also haven’t had ANY taste or smell in three months, I have random numbness in my hands and feet all day every day, and now I am blind. So she sends me straight to the Pregnancy Triage, which is a little wing of the main birthing unit at UK that is basically a special emergency room only for pregnant women.

I arrive there, and am examined and told that Neurology will need to have an MRI done and will need to see me. As I’m sitting there, it happens again. I begin blinking profusely, but can’t see anything except those white flashes. Then my leg goes numb. Not just my foot, my entire leg. Good grief. So I agree to wait.

Let me paint you a picture. This “room”, and I use that word loosely as I am basically partitioned off behind a curtain in a corner of one much larger room, is about the size of a broom closet. The bed is hard as a rock, and there is one blinking fluorescent light above my head. I am pregnant. And blind. And numb. And uncomfortable. This does not a happy momma make.  But you know what else does not a happy momma make? A FIVE HOUR WAIT FOR AN MRI SCAN. Oh good Lord in heaven grant me patience y’all, I was ready to take names and call the President!

Mild comic relief: At one point, when I realize I’m going to basically go ahead and sign a lease and move into this broom closet and have them get my MRI done in the Spring when it’s nice and the lilies are in bloom, I realize my sugar is dropping. In all the crazy, I forgot to eat anything since that morning before I went blind. So I ask Andrew to go get me a snack, secretly hoping he miraculously finds a cheeseburger in the hall.

And guess what? HE DID!!! Well, not in the hall. But he did find the cafeteria. So he comes back with a huge cheeseburger and fries, and my heart be still I want to marry this man all over again. So I devour this burger, probably in about 2 bites, and as I’m eating he starts laughing hysterically. Like, crying. I look at him, bewildered that anything about this day is funny, and he says, “I’m sorry baby. But I’m sitting in a closet with my pregnant wife, watching her eat a cheeseburger like it’s the end of the world, waiting five hours for an MRI scan all because she went blind today…and NONE of this even feels odd to me!” and he busts out laughing even harder. Then I start laughing, because he had a point, and we sat there and laughed until we cried. And no, I never shared that huge cheeseburger. The baby needed it.

Anyway, after hours and hours I finally went in for my MRI. Have you ever had one done? Allow me:

I lay down on a small white table that is about as wide as a toothpick, and is NOT plus size friendly. They offered me headphones and to pick the Pandora station I would like to listen to. “Well, how nice!!” I thought, and chose a station. She then puts the headphones on me and turns the music on, and only then does she begin to tell me about how the scan will work. I couldn’t hear, but I managed to take away small words from lip reading such as “loud”, and “vibrate” and “shaking” are normal. Okay, fine. How bad can it be?

So they begin the scan and shove me in this tube. Over my head is large white cage, which I am guessing protected me from something. And then, for 20 minutes the LOUDEST sounds I have ever heard in my life began. It sounded like the aliens had landed. I was shaking, vibrating, and it was just SO LOUD. That Pandora station didn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t even hear it in the background during most of it. *shudders* Never. Again.

Anyway, after my scans I get sent back to the broom closet to await my fate. Again, I say to my hubby, “Can’t we just go home? They’re just going to come up here, say everything is fine and send me home.”

Big. Fat. Mouth.

I then find out things were “inconclusive” and am going to be admitted to the hospital. I’m sorry. What? But…fine. Okay, fine. But I want a ROOM with a BED. And maybe another cheeseburger.

Andrew goes home to let the dogs out and pick up everything on my list of things I must have (phone charger, iPad charger, purple snowman pants, the usual) and I am whisked into admitting. My room had no windows, but it did have a more comfortable bed, my own shower and bathroom, and a flat screen TV so I was fine. Thanks to the baby, they didn’t want to put any meds in me without doctor approval, so I was spared the IV. I was NOT spared the millions of tubes of blood they had to take though. Geez.

I spent the night in a sleepless funk, waking every hour to be poked and prodded and ultrasounded and turned and test monkey’d. I finally fell asleep, then at 4am I am awoken by a tiny man in a white coat who tells me he’s from Neurology and is a Resident and has my MRI results. At 4AM? FOUR? Is that even legal? Can’t I call pregnant?

Anyway, he examines me (again) and says his Attending will be in later in the day to talk to me and go over results and treatment plans, etc. (Sidebar: Thank you Grey's Anatomy for my stellar knowledge level of what doctors are called and what those titles mean. Thank you Shonda Rhimes.) I never really went back to sleep because the revolving door of people continued. Finally, around 9am the Neuro Attending came in, and basically here is the (lack of) conclusion I was given:

Don’t be worried, your brain looks great, all clear. We believe you may be experiencing Migraine Auras, basically migraine headaches WITHOUT the headache part. Pregnancy sometimes jumpstarts these, and you’ll have them for life now. But you’ll need to see an Ophthalmologist for the full retinal exam, because it is not my specialty.

There is a small cyst on your sinus cavities. That may be causing the loss of smell and taste. But you’ll have to see an ENT for that, it is not my specialty.

Your diabetes may just be causing the vision problems. Or it could just be a pregnancy side effect. Honestly? No idea why you’re numb, blind, and can’t taste/smell. But your brain? Looks GREAT!

So there you have it. Per usual, I am Micha, Medical Marvel Woman of the South (I need a cape…) here to baffle doctors everywhere. I’m glad my brain was fine, and the baby was just fine during all of this. During every ultrasound, Baby G was bouncing and waving and having the time of its life. Noooooo idea that Momma was up here wandering aimlessly, walking into walls eating cheeseburgers and limping.

Pay no mind to momma Baby G. Just bounce on little ninja. Bounce on.

Ninja Baby

So first of all, let me say this: being pregnant is NO. JOKE. Just wanted to get that out of the way. Shew. I feel better already.

Secondly...hey y'all! As we all know by now when Micha goes through life-events -i.e. losing 50 lbs, getting married, or having a baby - then there just has to be a blog to document the process. Because rarely does anything that happens to me play itself out normally. There are always stories to be told. And y'all seem to enjoy my can't-make-this-stuff-up life, so here we are. Again.

I am just under 4 1/2 months pregnant as of this writing. Baby G has a "birthday" every Saturday and tomorrow it will be 17 weeks old. I am well into the second trimester and actually feeling pretty good for the most part. The first trimester was for reals the hardest thing I have ever went through in my life. I wanted to start this blog much sooner, but I could rarely scrape myself off the floor and get to a computer to do so.

It's probably in y'all's best interest that I didn't blog during that time. Honestly, it would have been a horror story of why we should never have children and should be perfectly content with winning goldfish at county fairs to satisfy our motherly instincts.

Now granted, most of my terrible-awful I brought on myself. I am over-weight. I have Type 2 Diabetes. I am not exactly the poster-child for a healthy pregnancy. I just didn't realize exactly how much my body was going to change and morph and react to growing a tiny human. I had sugar levels going through the roof, I had nervous breakdowns that I was going to put my baby into some type of sugar coma (which I learned wasn't entirely a real thing), I had headaches for days, and the tiredness. OHhhhhh y'all. The tiredness. Have you ever been so sleepy, so incredibly useless, that even raising your hand to your mouth to swallow a bite of soup feels like the final obstacle course in American Ninja Warrior? I am not exaggerating. I would walk from my office door to my car, which is a grand total of 10 yards even when I get the worst parking spot. By the time I reached my car I seriously contemplated taking a nap before putting my car in reverse because I was that exhausted. I slept in the car. I slept on the couch. Sitting up. Laying down. One day, I think I nodded off in the shower!

At the end of the first trimester, just as I was reaching my breaking point with the tiredness, I went in for my ultrasound. This wasn't my first, it was my 3rd or 4th. I have them constantly because I am a high-risk pregnancy, so I go every week. So I was used to the process. Lay down. Put wand on belly. Can't see baby, you're too early. Shove wand up my hoo-ha. There is baby. Wait, where is baby? Oh. There is baby. Wait. That's a baby? Looks like a lima bean. Okay.

But this one, right around 14 weeks, was my 1st trimester ultrasound and it had been a few weeks since I had the full ultrasound done, not just the small portable one my OB does every week. So they put the wand on me (cold!) and I waited to be told they couldn't see the baby. But she didn't say anything. I looked at the screen, and there was this little...baby! It had little hands, and arms, and legs!! It looked like a tiny little doll. But that isn't even what caught my attention. What we saw, was the baby was in fact having a ninja dance party. Jumping, kicking, waving arms, and having the time of it's life! Well, no wonder momma has been falling asleep in the shower! Every nutrient in my body has been going straight to Baby G so it could have the time of its life!

We laughed and cried through that entire ultrasound. I decided never to be bitter about being tired again. Sure, I still have days where I look at my stomach and plead for the energy-sucking tiny human to please take a nap. But I can't ever get that image out of my head of my sweet, Baby Gehring happy and content and completely unaware of this big world outside my belly.

If only I could always and forever protect this baby this much, and keep that happiness in its little heart. It would be worth all the naps in the world.