Beginning about two months ago I noticed that my joint pain suddenly started to go away. I suspected that the warmer weather may have something to do with it. The stiffness in my fingers went away and my right thumb soreness disappeared. My lower back pain is almost nonexistent. Since I don't think my family reads this blog, I'll state what I think the real reason is for my joint pain going away. I'm glad I can now stand for more than two hours without aggravating the bursitis (which is almost gone too).
Last week I started to suspect that something else was going on, so I took the test, and found out that I'm pregnant! I barely had any symptoms. My belly was just getting "bloated" and was like that for several weeks before testing. I may be as much as 11 weeks along! I'm now wondering if I really do have some kind of autoimmune disease, but not showing up in the blood work yet. Such diseases can go into remission during pregnancy, because the immune system is suppressed. I forgot what it felt like to not have bursitis and stiff fingers, it's nice to be able to feel more normal again, except for the bit of nausea and pregnancy brain! It will be interesting to see if the arthritis and bursitis return after the pregnancy hormones wear off after the birth. I'll definitely let the doctor know about the loss of symptoms during pregnancy. I'm not sure that gout would just go away like that during pregnancy. What I'm experiencing could be more consistent with having some kind of autoimmune disease.
If that is the case I need to figure out what I need to do in case it is an autoimmune condition. Some major life changes may need to be made. Maybe I need to eventually go back to work as an engineer to pay for proper medical care, save money up so I can get help from a nanny here and there, later on pay for someone to help me with my aging parents and mother-in-law, get more help with household chores. These kinds of illnesses can get really expensive really quickly.
My husband told me that he's hoping that the arthritis would go away and never come back. But that's wishful thinking. There are days now, that I hope that my genetics would catch up with me, I'll keel over from a brain aneurysm when I'm fairly young and he's gets a big fat life insurance check, starts a new life with the farming wife he did not know he wanted before he married me. He also tells me never to hope for the aneurysm, because he wants to live life with me. So sweet, but I'm beginning to think I'm not a great match for him in so many ways. Sure, I'm sweet and really do want the best for him, but there's a lot he'd like to have that I'm not cut out for providing for him. He wants the wife that bakes bread, makes jam and preserves, loves tending to the garden, adores the backyard chickens, does not mind having a dog to care for, does not shy away from hard work outside, and loves to cook really tasty meals, gets up early to make him a hearty breakfast every morning, homeschools her kids real well, etc. But he married someone who is more of a "career woman" who would not mind sending her kids to private school, who pays for vacations with the kids and hubby, hires a babysitter frequently so I can go out to eat with my husband at a nice restaurant and watch a movie afterward, hires a lawn crew to mow our lawn so my husband does not have to, goes on fun outings with the kids on the weekends, buys food to take to church instead of cooking it myself, able to buy nice gifts for friends and family, etc.
I did not choose to have this pathogenic allele, rs1799895 in the SOD3 gene with a frequency of 2.4% in the general population. I think there is something to it, because my grandmother died of a brain aneurysm at the ripe age of 43. My father almost died from a brain aneurysm as well. I have a mutation on the ROS1 gene that also makes more susceptible rs619203. Sometimes life gets hard and it seems like an easy way to go. My dad says that he just remembers blacking out and then waking up in the hospital. So there's the good news, my daughter is getting a sibling if all goes well. The bad news, the symptoms going away could mean I actually have an undetected autoimmune condition. My life may end up being really miserable for various reasons, being chronically sick, not being cut out for the lifestyle my husband wanted (subsidence farming anyone?), not being able to afford good medical care if I cannot work for a while, feeling bad for increasing the cost of living because of my illness and all the help that comes with it, etc. It's looking more like I do not want to stick around that long. I know it is selfish to want to want to go, but I know my husband and kids will be ok. My daughter is truly the sweetest of the sweet and cutest of the cute. She sleeps well and has from an early age, she is the most adorable baby/toddler I have ever seen, she has a great sense of humor, always laughing and giggling. My husband is a sweet hardworking man and I'm sure he'd make a better decision about the next person he'd be with. We'll see what comes of the genetic component. I'm not sure there really is anything I can do to prevent an aneurysm, but all I know is that it could potentially put me out of my misery if things go south from here.
