Blood clots, weight loss, and depression! Oh my!

Hello!!

I hope you all are doing well! Me? I'm surviving. After reading this post I hope you'll have a better understanding of what I mean when I say that.

Its been a while since I've done a proper post and I figure I better start with where the hell I've been. I haven't had too much happen but enough that I know I am not the same person that I was maybe two years ago.

We'll start out at the beginning of 2017. I wanted 2017 to be the year of Nicole, I wanted to get back on track with taking care of myself, feeling good and just living life and being happy. Yeah...that didn't happen. At all. Late 2016 I found out I was going to be an aunty again and believe me I was super happy for my best friend who has been my BFF/sister for 13 years now. As the rest of 2016 went on and 2017 began I wanted to be super happy and looking forward to a spring baby, but my depression which I thought I had a handle on decided to break free.

I began to feel jealous that my bestie was on to her second baby, she has an amazing boyfriend (now fiance) and her was poor Nicole, no boyfriend, still living at home with no prospects. Hello pity party for one here.

I was also sad that I was turning 30 in 2017. And something that was really sad was I resigned myself to the fact that maybe I wasn't meant to meet someone or have kids of my own. This is how my brain was functioning at the time.

I confessed these feelings to my bestie shortly after she gave birth to my newest niece Emilia Grayce.

This was taken just a couple days after Emilia made her debut. 

My best friend who has been there for me through so much suggested that maybe I should join an online dating site and see what happens. I had tried it once in the past and it didn't really pan out for me so I kind of put dating off for while.

However this time I would meet someone who would change everything. I had gotten messages from guys, ones I didn't want to respond to I just didn't feel anything. Then one day I got a message from a guy. We'll call him Mr. S. Well Mr. S. sent me a message that wasn't any more special than the others but for some reason I wanted to message him back, badly. I took a whole day to do it. But once I did we just clicked. About a few days after talking we decided to meet up and after that we hung out a lot.  We went to some amazing places.

30th Birthday adventures. 

I went camping for the first time with Mr. S. 

I was loving our lazy weekends.

He made me so happy.


We got close but never defined our relationship, and that's the way it was for a few months. But Mr. S, made me feel alive, I started loosing weight because I wanted to look good for him, and for myself. He made me feel beautiful like no one else ever had. Sadly during the fall, Mr. S. and I had a huge fight. He wasn't ready to settle down and along with some other personal things, it all just blew up and we stopped talking and even unfriended each other from Facebook. I was miserable. If my depression was already bad this was the tipping point for things to get worse.

On top of Mr.S and I 'breaking up' things at home were bad too. My dad went into the hospital for sometime and it was just one thing after another.

Then Thanksgiving hit.

Around the beginning of November I had developed a horrid cough where I couldn't take a deep breath. I thought it was an upper respiratory infection, or bronchitis, and that I get it every year and it would go away on its own. But it didn't. So Thanksgiving I went to work and suddenly as I walked into the pharmacy I felt like everything rushed to my head and I was unsteady. When I got to my computer I became short of breath and freaked out calling out for my boss who is my savior. After almost an hour of sitting and not being able to stand or walk a long distance with out feeling like I couldn't breathe my mom came and took me to the urgent care that is ideally across the street from where I work.

From there we found out my heart rate was in the 130's while I was sitting down, Your heart rate should never be that high unless your intensely working out. My oxygen level was 89%, it should never go down below 95%. So I was sent by ambulance to the ER at the local hospital. After a blood test called the D-dimer, its a test that identifies if you have possible blood clots, the  test  came back positive so they sent me for a Cat scan to see if I had blood clots in my lungs.

I had massive blood clots in both lungs with my right lung worse then my left. I had to then be transferred to a new hospital who could save me.

The morning of Thanksgiving before it all went south. 

A few hours later 

I had to have procedure done to break up the blood clots and was in the hospital a total of 5 days.  I could have died. The whole reason for these clots? Birth control. It was the only different thing I started two months earlier. Since this whole thing I have had a battery of test done, especially testing to see if I had inherited risk factors that could of caused this. Nope every single test came back negative so far. I knew that would happen, and I'm glad it did, it means I won't be on blood thinners the rest of my life and I can still have kids.

During this time Mr.S and I reconnected and have started hanging out again. We are not dating but you never know what the future holds.

Since my stay in the hospital I swore 2018 would be the year I take care of me. While in the hospital I dropped 10 pounds making my grand total of weight loss since I met Mr. S 45 pounds. I have about 35 pounds more to loose and I think I'll be in a good place.

The photo of me in the pink tank top is from 2015 and the one in the mint one is from just a few weeks ago. 

I'm thankful for the push that Mr. S. gave me to begin loosing weight. I'm also amazed at how much depression and stress had a hand in it and I didn't go back to my old ways of eating. I honestly thought I was sick and that's why I lost so much weight but I'm actually super healthy according to doctors.

I have also sought out help with my depression and anxiety. Every day is a battle for me. Some days are really good and then other days I go to work and I feel I can't breathe and I have vice grip around my rib cage. Or I'll be with friends and want to leave because I just can't sit there and be happy and I don't want to burden anyone. I have had days where I've said allowed that I just want to disappear, or go into hiding until I feel better.  I doubt myself on a regular basis, need reassurance that things will be okay. And when its the bad days I can cry at the drop of hat.  Right before I went into the hospital I went to an Open Access Clinic for Mental health and since I have gone back twice now to talk to counselors and I'm on the waiting list for a therapist. I don't know whats going to come of this, but I know I need help in managing everything and talking to someone who doesn't know me.

As of my last session my counselor used the term "broken". I had called myself that before but to hear someone else say it, it hit me hard. I was told I have to take care of me, learn to love me, take care of me or else I'll be stuck the rest of my life. These things I've known about myself, but my issue is where do I start?

So that was my 2017 in a nutshell. If you really want me to make a video going into greater detail let me know and I'll do my best to make it happen.

Thanks for reading! Until next time.