Been a little stressed these days. To make a long story short, Scarlet has been complaining about her elbows and knees hurting a lot. Let me explain. SHE IS A TOUGH COOKIE. Many have commented in the past when they see her take a fall. She does NOT cry unless she has a BAD fall. And I mean like a big fall you hear from the other room. And when THAT happens, she cries for MAYBE 10 seconds? 30 at the VERY most and I'm not sure THAT'S happened more than once in her whole life. She just doesn't cry when she gets hurt. If she complained about her knees after a fall, I wouldn't think twice about it. But we will be DRIVING, WATCHING TV or sitting in her highchair- NO REASON FOR PAIN and out of nowhere she will start FREAKING OUT pointing to her elbows or knees saying "Owie! Owie! Hurt! Hurt! Elbow! Elbow!" And it will last minutes. She's been doing this for about two weeks now and it seems to be progressing.

After a few days of this I thought, "Is this a sign of Lyme? Is this what she's telling us?" My sister and her husband have lyme and this is a symptom. Joint pain. So I mention my slight concern to Greg and he said he thought of the same thing, but let's just wait it out a bit and see as we go. Well, it doesn't lighten up. It keeps going. So at this point I'm getting more concerned and want to get her tested and see a doctor. Well that was just a big 'ol ball of stress right there. I found 2 doctors on the entire east coast that will even SEE her because she is so young. One is down town DC, and honestly doesn't deal with a lot of kids. The other is the MASTER of treating kids with lyme, but can't get me in until SEPTEMBER. There is SO MUCH more emotional drama to this part of the story, but we'll just skip it.

Meanwhile, I have such a stomach ache even THINKING about getting her blood drawn because it seems the only times I've heard of kids having their blood drawn, no one can ever find a vein and it takes 2 hours of poking 'till it finally happens. This stressed me OUT. I mean, feeling like I was going to throw up for a couple days. Ok, so I finally decide to just get her blood drawn and send it to IGenex, because they do the most thorough testing for lyme. This brought on MORE drama.

I meet our new pediatrician for the first time, which was an immediate rocky start (this woman doesn't even smile, why is she working with kids?) ANYWAY. I know she thinks I'm an idiot and starts spouting off Scarlet's insanely low risks for lyme, but at the same time spouts off a few INCORRECT comments about the whole disease, but it's not like I can just say, "Lady, I know you have a medical degree 'n all, but I apparently know more about this than you do." But I finally cut her off and say, "Is this test going to hurt her at all? Is there any down side? If not, I want her to take this test." At that point I think she knew it was a waste of time talking me out of it and gave me the signature I needed and sent me to a lab.

THAT lab sucked and had the WORST service ever to make me wait around and finally say, "Oh, we can't do that here. Take it to the hospital." So I go to the hospital for them to tell me the SAME THING, "We can't send blood off to other labs. There's liability issues." BUT, this guy was REALLY REALLY nice and told me where to go. Fairfax. So a lovely 45 minute drive, a bit of getting lost and I FINALLY make it to INOVA, who takes courtesy draws. I arrive and the receptionist tries to tell me they won't do it either and this is basically my one last chance. I can't tell you how sick of receptionists I am. They never know ANYTHING. They always just want to send me away. On the phone, they always have accents I can barely understand them and they can never understand what I'm trying to ask anyway. That's why I just keep showing up, HOPING they'll help me. But I persist and a lab tech or SOMEBODY shows up at just the right time and solves everything. Her name was Kia and she was sent from above. She was REALLY nice, REALLY helpful and COMPLETELY went out of her way to help me.

Scarlet getting her blood drawn was no biggie. I mean, she cried and hated it, but the whole thing lasted a minute. It was quick. I was so relieved. All that stress for nothing.

There is so much to the story that I'm leaving out. I cannot even describe how many overwhelming feelings, tears and struggle there has been to get this DONE. Even mailing off her blood samples was an ordeal.

Through it all Scarlet was a champ and was very happy and made my day so much better than I thought it was going to be. This whole thing was spread out over days/weeks, but the day it ACTUALLY happened, Scarlet was amazing.

So now we wait. Either way, I think something is wrong with Scarlet. Her joint pain seems to be more frequent and possibly waking her in the night? Not positive about that one yet. I think it definitely happened once. So SOMETHING is wrong. And it panics me. Others have mentioned that it could be growing pains, but I looked it up and on different sights it said that the pain is always BETWEEN joints, never the actual joints and that THAT would be something different and more serious. Hooray. I just keep hoping that she doesn't have lyme and this joint thing is random and it all just goes away! But we'll see.

Somedays I feel so full of faith and that everything will be fine, which ever way it goes and I really feel positive! Other days I feel consumed with worry and all I can do is look at articles online or watch Grey's Anatomy while stuffing my face with chocolate. Good stuff.

MEANWHILE. On my way home from getting her blood sent off, I get a call from my OBGYN saying my glucose test was kinda high and I need to take ANOTHER test, but a 3 hour test. YES! Gestational Diabetes would just be the cherry on top, right? Well, if that comes my way, at least I will be skinny fast after my delivery.

That's ANOTHER THING. I wish the baby would come. I feel bad saying that. If I delivered today my baby would have serious problems. Not what I want. But seriously, because I was pregnant and miscarried- with the exception of two weeks I HAVE BEEN PREGNANT LONG ENOUGH TO HAVE A BABY ALREADY. Well, to have the baby this month. Annoying. I'm done being pregnant. I never sleep. I pee about every two hours all night long, every night. If I get a 6 hour stretch, it's amazing. But that happens like once a week. I don't remember it being this bad with the last one. I don't know. Maybe it was.

I've pretty much confided in no one about this lyme worry. So please don't be hurt I didn't confide in you. Two reasons. I keep getting these two different reaction, both of which I despise. The overreactive, "You have to do this!" Reaction. Where I feel like I'm doing something wrong or not good enough and I don't want to get more stressed out than I already am. And then there's the LOOK. The look that says, "Man, you're an idiot. Don't you realize how there's basically no way your baby has lyme? Are you really this stupid?" Not EVERYONE reacts this way, but it happens a lot and I'm sick of dealing with it. And I seem to keep it all together emotionally, UNTIL I talk about it, then I feel depressed. So I'd rather just not talk about it. Like now. Now that I've talked it out, I feel all down. And I think, "Why did I blog about this? Now everyone's going to know. And maybe she doesn't have lyme at all." But oh well. This blog documents my life and this has been a part of it. And I figure people's awareness and hopes and prayers don't hurt either. So there ya go.