Her NOT so fun Ultrasound RESULTS

It was about 1 week ago Rebecca's doctor scheduled her an ultrasound. The not so fun, not so fun kind. It wasn't suspecting a baby. It was wanting to look in the midsection for potential liver problems. The doctor was suspecting that or other abdominal problems.

I wish it was a happy ultrasound. So maybe it will be.

Yeah.

It probably will be.

It's nothing.

Yeah.

If it's nothing, it confirms the supplement idea.

Yeah, which is what the doctor thinks too. I think she just wants to make sure there's nothing else wrong.

That was a week ago. But with the holidays, given that Thanksgiving and then doctors taking Friday off, we didn't expect to hear anything till Monday, which was yesterday, and sure enough they called. Did you talk to the doctor?

Yeah, we're gonna do a brief phone consult tomorrow at 8:30.

Okay. Didn't tell us anything but scheduled a phone appointment for 8:30, so 22 minutes. How's that make you feel, Beck? You okay?

Yeah, I'm okay. I'm a little nervous. Mm-hmm. I, um, actually slept good last night, which is if I know something's coming up, I sometimes will have anxiety at night and I won't sleep good, but I didn't, I didn't have any of those problems, so I'm working hard at doing my tools and staying calm, and I'm okay. I'm just ready to know 20 minutes until I know, so it's like kind of crazy that I've waited so long. Now I'm gonna find out. It's like one of those things I wish they could just like do the ultrasound and be like, okay, there's nothing wrong, instead of having to wait a whole week to find out if there's something wrong, but— patience is a virtue.

6 minutes, 6 minutes till this phone call. Gotta get Mr. Brownlee excited. Where's my phone? I'm gonna pull out the big guns. The other kids are listening to an audiobook. Rebecca's phone. You're not mad. Jenna's doing chores. Lily and Josiah are listening to an audiobook on my phone. So that's good. We'll let that continue to happen. This is dead. Rebecca's phone is dead. I'll plug it in in just a second. It should be able to kick on, okay? Just give it one second. It's warm in here. Yeah. Are you scared?

Yeah.

Okay, well, you're gonna know in 7 minutes, sweetie. It's okay to be scared. I'm sorry. He went and stole their car. Probably red again.

Gideon, come back!

Turn on itself? Be okay. Yeah, yeah, we got 2 minutes. Okay, Mr. Brown, it's, it's queuing up, okay? In 2 minutes it should work.

I don't want to watch it right now.

Okay, it's 8:30 on the dot.

Please work. It's low. Probably, probably it's out of battery.

Okay, would you like to watch it on the computer?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm gonna just put it on the computer. All right, get in. Mom is on the phone. Why is the passcode not working?

Hack code?

Gosh, are you kidding me?

One of the old ones.

Tell me when she gets back on. Okay, one of the old ones? The tractor video? Yeah, that. Okay, you watch it. You guys ready to ride? If you want to watch something else, click on that. Okay, this?

Yeah.

Okay, okay. And then if you get done watching that, move this, move this hand, and then click the mouse. To get it to work.

Okay. Oh my gosh, I hope this phone works.

Oh, should I leave the door open?

I don't know. We got to get better phones.

Great. Well, how are you feeling?

Um, well, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm anxious about, you know, what was found or not found on the testing. But other than that, I feel like I've been doing a lot better overall. My heart rate seems to be lower in general and I've been doing a lot of, you know, just the emotional stuff, trying to stay calm and not anxious. I've been sleeping better overall, so that's good. My liver seems to not hurt as much, but I don't know. All right, great. Thank you. And I'm gonna see you in 2 weeks. I guess we can touch base then.

I could barely hear her.

I know.

Did you hear her?

I could.

So what's the deep breath for?

Okay, so— Is it that? No. So she thinks that I have had a virus because my spleen is enlarged and my liver is enlarged, and she thinks that I must have come across something and that triggered, um, you know, this reaction in my spleen and in my liver. She is— we are going to— we're going to— so we're going to test for some viruses.

That's her blood test?

Yeah, so we're going to do blood tests. She'll— she's trying to figure out which ones she wants me to have. So we're going to do— well, she knows that she wants me to have these viral tests. There's at least two, but then there's also something called, um, autoimmune hepatitis. So that's just another autoimmune disease that—

Oh no.

I could have. She just wants to be really thorough, basically. I don't think that she thinks that I really have that. I think she's leaning more towards a virus.

The blood work will tell us.

Yes.

Hepatitis or—

The blood work will tell us, so because I am having the liver and it's still mildly elevated. My blood work came back again, still mildly elevated. She wants me to see a hepatologist, which is a liver doctor, I guess. I'm assuming a hepatologist is a liver doctor. She said it takes a while to get into them, so that's why she's— she wants to get me ahead on the schedule with a hepatologist. Um, and then She's hoping though that this new, this next round of blood work will come back with more answers with like a virus thing.

And that's I guess what we hope for, is a virus.

Yeah. And so then she said we'll just cancel the hepatologist. Oh. And then I won't need to go to him if we get answers on this next round of blood work. Um, but the ultrasound did show that my spleen and my liver were enlarged, but other than that, I guess it's okay. Like, everything's working all right. It's just that they are aggravated, and so that's why she wants to make sure that, um, I don't— I— that it's not virus that's causing this. And I haven't had a fever, um, That shows her concern. She was like, have I had an illness in the last couple of months? But I can't remember a time when I had a fever or anything. But, um, so yeah.

She thought that she's gonna reduce your thyroid medicine.

So I'm having— so we changed my thyroid medicine from levothyroxine to Nature-Throid. And Nature-Throid. So levothyroxine is just a T4 medicine that I, that I've been taking for like 20 years. I never could find a doctor that would switch me over, so she put me on Nature-Throid, which is a T3/T4 supplement. So that's both of my— that's, it's a more complete thyroid medicine, and so Um, she's— she started me at 1 grain, and then I had a panic attack from that, so we went down to 3/4 grain, and I've been doing pretty good on that. But she does want me to go down to half a grain, and we're gonna see if— because I feel kind of just like shaky inside. Um, And that's a new symptom since I've been on the thyroid medicine. So because of that, she wants to put me down to half a grain. So I'm gonna change that. Amy Fuhl reached out to me when she saw our video and suggested milk thistle, which, um, the doctor had taken me off all herbs because we weren't sure what was causing this problem. So I just asked her, should I add the milk thistle in? And she said do that. So I'm gonna add milk thistle into my diet, into my supplements, and I'm going to— let's see, I'm going to— several of you guys suggested a SAD light, the seasonal affect disorder light, and I asked her about that and she gave me a recommendation to get one. So I'm gonna go ahead and get one of those to help. Um, and—

And that light is giving you vitamin D?

No.

Or mimics the sun?

I think it just mimics the sun. I don't know if it's giving me any vitamins. It's more just—

Because there's less sunlight right now?

Yeah, I think that it's just like a a certain amount of lumens or something. I don't know. I did look into it. I'm gonna research it a little bit more, but she thought that would be a good idea for me to do. Um, and then I'm gonna get this blood work done. There was a lot of different antibodies tests that she wanted to test me for, so she's gonna look that up and then put the order in for me to come in probably today or tomorrow to have that blood work taken. And so I'll go in today and have—

For the antibodies?

Yeah.

Is that different than the viral?

No, so yes, it's different. So that's for the autoimmune disease. The antibodies test is for the autoimmune hepatitis.

Well, what's the blood test for?

That's for the viruses. Oh. So it's a gut virus, actually. And then, um, sure. Um, so EBV. So she's concerned about EBV.

Okay.

And she's concerned about cytomegalovirus, I believe. Something like that.

Okay.

Um, that you can get. And so yeah, I feel good about what was said. I do not have any hepatitis A, B, or C. Duh.

You'll go to the craziest places in your worst—

Well, no, she tested me for that specifically because there was an issue. Um, I feel like it may be virus-related. That seems to make sense because my spleen is also enlarged. I'm feeling like my lymphatic system is slow. Um, so—

So if we go to day, that's the side I really—

I feel like—

Oh, is that her?

This is my mom in bed.

Oh.

No, it's Amy. Hey! Hey, what— Okay. I'm waiting for you to tell me. Well, okay, so we're just finishing up. Oh wow. Okay, so my spleen and my liver are enlarged, um, and so she's thinking that I have hepatitis.

Okay, well, this worked when you only let them watch the boob tube periodically. It sure is a good babysitter. Oh, needless to say, There's no Wednesdays with Willard today. Sorry, there's a lot of other stuff going on. It's not necessarily gonna happen every Wednesday, so if Wednesdays with Willard happens, it's probably gonna be on a Wednesday unless there's a special thing, but I'm not guaranteeing it every week, so sorry about that. Hopefully we'll get an appointment for that blood test this afternoon. Well, it's dark outside now. And it didn't happen. They didn't call for your blood tests.

They didn't.

She's trying to figure out what kind of blood tests you need. And I guess that didn't happen.

She said she had to research. She wanted to make sure she got me the right test. So I figured it might not be today.

Yeah.

And so it'll probably be tomorrow.

Well, I feel like you're in good hands.

Yeah.

And—

I do too. And I don't feel necessarily anxious about it.

No, I didn't notice that in you today.

If it was— if it's a virus, I feel like it's something that we can take care of.

Mm-hmm.

That won't like leave me damaged or anything, so— I mean, she's testing for the autoimmune immune hepatitis, which—

That's worst-case scenario in this.

Yeah, I feel like, I mean, I already have one autoimmune disease and they're like, I know that the likelihood of having a second one is a possibility. So like, this isn't something that like, is new to me.

Yeah.

And I hope that obviously I don't have another autoimmune disease, but yeah, if I do, it's not the end of the world and we'll, you know, take care of it and deal with it as needed. But I do feel really good about it, and I feel like we're gonna get answers. Mm-hmm. And if not, then I'm gonna go see a hepatologist, and maybe they'll have answers, and maybe they'll just be like, this is nothing, this is no big deal. And, you know, I mean, my doctor is not a liver doctor, like, you know, she'll tell you that. She's a family, family practitioner, so her passing me off to somebody who maybe knows more is not— I don't feel like that that's a really big deal.

Yeah.

So.

Well, I want to say, Becky, Rebecca, just so you know, I just checked comments for yesterday's video and you're dominating it. Well wishes for you. Well wishes and prayers. So I want to thank you guys.

Yes.

Ideas and suggestions and your word of encouragement. For the— what you learned in therapy is blessing a lot of people.

Good.

So we're happy about that. So we'll keep you guys informed.

Yes. Thank you guys so much for all the, all the well wishes. I appreciate it.