In Which I Spill the Beans :: My Life Story

Pain. It’s a warning. A flash of red against your eyelids, a stabbing sensation in your thigh. It’s what you feel when you stub your toe or when you hit your head on the doorway because you’re a 6’7” basketball player. Pain is what your body does when there’s something wrong.

And it’s what I experience every day.

But first, let me back up sixteen years. I was born. (Duh.) But the circumstances leading up to it are… intense, to say the least. If you were watching a movie of my life, I think you’d most likely be on the edge of your seat. At least, I’ve been on the edge of my seat for my life.

My parents almost lost me twice; the first when my mom started bleeding during the pregnancy, and the second time happened when I was (trying) to come out and be born into the world. Oh, and there was actually a third time, which happened when I had to have heart surgery at only two days old.

But I made it through. Fast forward to the present day. Remember my lovely metaphors for pain at the beginning of this post? Well, it just so happens that I’m well acquainted with the wonderful thing. In fact, I don’t think I can remember a time where I didn’t have pain.

I’ve had headaches ever since I can remember, though they started becoming very noticeable when I was 7. It took us a long time to figure out what was wrong. I went to so many doctors, more doctors than I can count. Some of them helped. Some of them didn’t. Some of them told me things about how messed up my body was that wounded me deeply.

After a long period of waiting, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia two years ago, in March of 2010. Ever since then, it’s been tough. Really tough. I have doubted God, I have questioned Him. I have been insanely low and yet I have also been insanely happy. It’s a roller coaster.

Lately, we’ve had more health issues crop up and it’s back to where I was when I was 7—searching for answers. Currently I’m in the midst of what feels like a million doctor’s appointments as we try to figure out what’s wrong with me.

Headaches are my main symptom. Along with that comes jaw pain. This flared up really badly in December of 2011. In February of 2012, I had my first orthodontic consult which told us that I had a major jaw misalignment. Who knew, right? Many months and a lot of ups and downs later, I’m now wearing braces to correct this problem. Despite this fact, my jaw problems are not completely resolved and I am still sadly on a mostly-liquid diet as of late until I adjust.

I also have PCOS—polycystic ovarian syndrome. Out of all of my conditions, this is the one I understand the least. All I know is, it made my periods comparable to methods of medieval torture. I’m now on medication to help this, and thankfully things are much better with that.

Two months ago, on August 22nd, I started having inexplicable itching. After no answers and a few unbearable weeks, my chiropractor suspects it’s a yeast overgrowth. To combat this, I am now on a no-sugar diet. I’m not going to lie, it’s insanely hard. For me, before all this happened, food was a comfort in the midst of my pain—it encouraged me and helped me get through each day. I looked forward to each morning because I could have a strawberry Greek yogurt cup. Now? I eat sour yogurt with cinnamon. Yum. I’m also off of milk and wheat, so because of these dietary restrictions as well as my jaw pain, I’m very limited on what I can eat. The things I eat now are gluten-free oatmeal, Mighty Tasty hot cereal, squash, and protein shakes. Sounds glamorous, right? …Not.

In addition to this, I recently found out that I have a glucose intolerance—or, basically, pre-diabetes. Thankfully, we were already on a low-sugar diet, so there won’t be as much adjustment there. And I have struggled with my blood sugar all my life, so it’s not too big of a deal. But it’s one more diagnosis, one more condition to add to my list. One more thing that makes me feel like I’m messed up and less-than-human.

In the past few months alone I’ve had more doctor’s appointments than I can keep track of.

— I got braces on September 21st, which created more pain in my mouth than I would care to experience. (The worst part? Getting the wires tightened. GAHHHH.)

— Once my mouth finally had adjusted to that, I got an extra tooth pulled, which sent me into a fibro flare (those with fibro or other chronic pain conditions will likely understand what I mean by that).

— I went to the endocrinologist, where I found out about my glucose intolerance and also got a handy dandy blood sugar meter to prick my finger with and monitor my levels. (Free stuff for the win!)

— Yesterday I went to the gynecologist to monitor my PCOS, which is doing fine—yay for improvement on at least part of my life! (However, my sanity suffered after that—try being stuck in a claustrophobic room while feeling like crap while two kids are crying and miserable and all you want to do is cry and be miserable, too. …Yeah. You’ve been warned.)

— After that, I went to the chiropractor, where I have been put on even more supplements to try to help me. (You should see my supplements collection, and the sheer amount of pills I have to take each day. It’s ridiculous. Some people collect paperclips… I collect pills. No big deal.)

— I had a sleep apnea test last month where they attached random wires to my head and I dreamed about Doctor Who and bow ties. This week, I’ll get to find out the results of this test. (I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t have to add another condition to my list. One can only hope.)

It’s getting to the point where I’m so confused about which doctor I’m going to next. Before my gynecologist appointment yesterday, I wondered, “do I have to brush my teeth really well before this appointment?” Uh… no. Wrong doctor, dearest.

My mom is great. Last night she let me just pour out all my troubles to her—and as I talked, I realized that I am simply overwhelmed. This is so much to take, especially all at once. I’m stressed. I’m tired. I’m depressed. I’m… sick and tired of being sick and tired. I simply want to feel better already, dang it!

But, in the midst of all this, there are some positives. It’s fall now, and I love fall. It’s October, which means that November is just around the corner, and so is NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo, in short, is where you attempt to write 50,000 words in a month. For a writer like me, this is a huge deal. I just eat it up and it majorly brightens my life.
Those doctor’s appointments I mentioned also brought good tidings of great joy that shall be to all people—I’ve lost weight. At least seven pounds, depending on which scales are of the utmost correctness. I’ve been trying to lose weight for a while, so that’s very, very good. It could be due to the fact that I’m barely eating anything due to jaw pain… but ahem, ahem, let’s not go there.

And the best thing of all? In the midst of this loneliness and isolation, I have a dear friend coming out to stay with me in five days. (Georgie Penn, anyone?) She’ll be here for a week and I am absolutely stoked. I haven’t seen her in 2 years and this will be the most time we’ve spent together, ever. Simply put? This will be a huge blessing.

So life is crazy sometimes… actually, all the time. At least for me right now, anyway. It's not all good, but it's not all bad. This quote about sums it up:

“The way I see it, life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”

- Doctor Who, Vincent and the Doctor