Life in Downey, Idaho

     In my last blog I let everyone know whats been going on the last 7 and a half years. In this blog and I am going to fill everyone in an what life has been like living in Downey. Our little town has a population of 600 people. I LOVE IT!!! When we first moved here I was a little nervous to put down roots in a town were I knew absolutely no one. When my parents moved to Preston they at least had some of our family but me I had no one. But over the years I have made friends and I really love it here.

     After we first moved here I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. It was a big shock to me since I thought arthritis was for old people.  They put me on some medicine that made me gain 50lbs in one month. Needless to say I told them I would take the pain over the weight. After trying a bunch of things for almost a year the local Dr. decided to send me to a specialist and that's when I met Dr. Corey Walker. He has been a great doctor and has worked really hard to keep me healthy.

     He put me on some medicine that was a shot that I had to give myself once a week in my thigh and it worked awesome. I didn't hurt at all, but I didn't have an immune system either. They put me on immuno suppressants since that is what RA is. It is your immune system attacking your joints. Because I didn't have an immune system I got sick alot. I got the flu shot like we all do and in February of 2009 I ended up with influenza A. If you think you have had the flu you don't know what the flu is until you have the actual influenza. I felt like I was dying.  During this time I had to go off all my meds so I hurt even worse. But I kicked it and went back on my meds.

     In April of the same year I started having sever pains in my stomach and ended up in the ER to have my gal bladder removed. I felt soooo much better after that. Little did I know that it was just the beginning of my summer from Hell!!!! In June I ended up back in the ER with almost the same pain that put me in the ER earlier that year. After a day there and a return trip a few days later I was told that I had MRSA. If you don't know what that is it is the super Staph infection. It was in  my kidney's and bladder. I had picked it up while in the hospital for my surgery. If they had not found it when they did things could have when from bad to worse in a quick hurry and because I had no immune system from my meds it made things that much worse.

     I started to get the staph sores on my skin and they hurt really bad, but the pumped me full of antibiotics and they went away. I happy to note I haven't had any other breakouts in almost a year knock on wood. In September of that year once again I was in the ER with the same pain. At this time both Jake and I were at our whits end trying to figure out why I was in so much pain all the time and with him working out of town all the time it made the stress that much worse. This time they discovered it was my appendix. So away to the operating room I went.  I am happy to note that since that surgery I haven't had that pain. Makes me wonder if it wasn't my appendix the whole time. The whole time this was going on I wasn't able to take my arthritis meds so that I could build up my immune system and fight these infections. So needless to say I was in pain.

     Once I got all of that taken care of I started to take my meds again. My stomach started to not tolerate the meds so they switched my pills to a shot also. So now I was sticking myself twice a week. Then just when things started looking good I got shingles. After that Jake told me if I took one more shot of the immuno suppressants he would divorce me. I know he was kidding but he was really serious about getting off of them. So I stopped it and now am on an IV infusion once a month and it has been working really well. And I haven't had any infections YAY!!!!!

    During this whole time my kids and husband were so supportive. My kids are the best kids in the whole world and are so helpful when I am stiff and sore from my RA flareups. I have always kind of wanted another baby but because of my meds the birth defects would be really bad. I now know why I had my kids so young. The Lord knew that I would have these problems and wanted me to have the joy of being a parent. Although they do say RA goes into a kind of remission during pregnancy so maybe one day ;)

     So I guess this blog hasn't really had much to do with Downey and more to do with my health. Guess I should tell you all alittle more about Downey.  It is a very small community. My son Wyatt is in the first grade and he has 14 kids in his class and that is the whole grade. He has been able to learn so much and is reading to me every night.  There isn't much here but it is still an awesome little town. For the first time in my life I can walk out my back door and see my horses standing in the back yard. I live a stones throw from the arena and that is really nice. There is only one thing this town is missing and that is my husband. He is currently working in Oregon but I am so happy that he will be coming home this weekend for a little over a week. His honey due list is really long ;)

     Well I hope that I am not boring you guys but I figured I need to take this time to bring you all up to date on whats been going on so that you wont be lost in the future. I cant wait to keep everyone up to date on the going on's in our life. It is pretty crazy at times but I love it. I couldnt ask for more!!!