Tag Archives: sickness

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Poisoning Myself.

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Three days ago, after having Cromolyn Sodium in my cupboard for 19 weeks, I finally decided I was stable enough to add a new drug. Cromolyn was originally used as an inhaled anti-iflammatory to treat allergic- and exercise-induced asthma. The oral version of Cromolyn has been used more recently to treat mastocytosis and mast cell disorders. It is a liquid that comes in ampules and is mixed into water. The doctor who prescribed it for me is the same one that diagnosed me with MCAS, but he didn’t seem to know much about Cromolyn. The pharmacy knew nothing. I had to go online and ask the people in my mast cell Facebook group for details and then call the pharmacist and explain exactly what the drug was. I am so thankful for the knowledge of these groups and Cromolyn seemed to help far more people than it harmed. It also seemed pretty innocuous — I only talked to a few people who had major side effects and they were things I don’t typically experience, like itching and nausea.

Of course, there’s always a part of me that is looking for the magic pill. Imagine I started this drug and my mast cells calmed down and symptoms I didn’t even realise were caused by them disappeared! … But, it still took me almost 5 months to convince myself to take it. It wasn’t until my bowels went into hibernation that I decided to take the plunge. A few weeks ago, motility stopped, gastroparesis reared its ugly, bloated head and everything ceased functioning in my intestines. No movement, not even a fart, and mega doses of magnesium and vitamin C weren’t doing anything. Cromolyn can help these internal inflammation symptoms and I had high hopes.

The dose I was meant to take was eight ampules in a day — two 4 times a day. The doctor never mentioned to work up slowly and some people in my online group were able to start at full dose. I wanted to be careful because we’re talking about my ridiculously hyper-sensitive body, after all, but I was pretty confident that I’d be fine. So, the first day, I took 1/3 of an ampule in the morning. The next day, I took 2/3 of an ampule in the morning. All seemed fine, so, that night before bed, I took 3/4 of an ampule. At 5 in the morning, I woke up sick sick sick. So sick. Sicker than I’ve been in years, maybe. Sick like my original sickness. Malarial. Encephalo-. Shaking all over, chilled, sweating feverishly, head pounding, stiff neck, muscles cramping, throat constricted, barely able to lift my arm or walk to the bathroom. Oh god, the FEAR. I’d rather die than go back to this. I felt like an ex-con in a movie choosing death-by-cop rather than go back to jail. My mind was like a panicked, caged animal, looking for a way out, falling in and out of fever dreams where I was screaming for my mother over and over again. I’d rather the “nightly flu” that I used to get. I’d rather the ME monster that slams me down with massive, pummeling hands, but I now know will release me eventually if I hold very still for a while. I think I’d even rather be back in December, 2013, when I called on all of you angels to get me through what I thought might be permanent bedboundness.

I felt poisoned. There’s no other way to describe it. I took my temperature: 98.4 degrees. My blood pressure was 80/55 (normal for me). My blood sugar was 80. Not much I could do but wait it out. I lay in bed the whole day yesterday, meditating, deep breathing away the fear of permanent relapse to an acceptable distance. I have a painful burn on my hand that is taking a while to heal and I kept falling into dreams where the burn was causing sepsis. That’s what it felt like — a systemic infection — I’d wake up panting and quiet my mind. I’m good at doing that during waking hours, but, in my dreams… I’m always silently screaming.

I feel a bit better today, but still didn’t sleep. I haven’t had a headache in a long time, believe it or not, and the pain is brutal. My muscles are aching and I feel swollen. The fear has dissipated to frustration. I’m frustrated with myself for trying another drug. I was doing so well. I had a lot of firsts the last few weeks (I’ll post about that later, but here’s a teaser: first time in a store, first road trip, first time on a beach in two years!) and then I couldn’t leave well enough alone and trust that my body was slowly, but surely, helping itself. I’m frustrated with myself for not going slower. I could have ramped up the dose over a full month, but I’m always so impatient. I’m frustrated that I’ve lost the potential help of Cromolyn. That was probably the worst reaction I’ve ever had apart from anaphylaxis, so I’ll never touch it again. I’m not even willing to try again going much slower, so I’ll never know if it could have helped. And that makes me frustrated because it was so hard to get it and it’s incredibly expensive and it’s such a waste. I have a friend who can take it off my hands, but, if I ever wanted to try it again, I’m out of luck because I don’t have insurance to cover it anymore.

And, in contrast to how I feel now, I realise how well I was doing. I was managing to do things every day — stand in the kitchen and cook for an hour, have conversations easier, wash and dry my hair without a thought. This weekend we have one last stab at summer — two days of high 70s and low 80s — and I was going to surprise our friends Z and J by going to their house on Vashon Island for the first time in years. I felt strong enough to do it and that was not even an option 6 months ago. Instead, I’ll barely be moving this weekend. But at least I’ll barely be moving in the garden, in the sun.

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My Visit to Dr. Chia

Okay, okay, stop begging, I’ll tell you about my appointment with Dr. Chia. I can’t believe this took me so long to write, but I’ve been plugging away a little bit, day by day. I can save you some time and tell you straight away that it was not worth the trip. I don’t really feel like I learned anything new or found access to treatments I couldn’t have tried without him. That doesn’t mean I regret the trip, it just means, if someone else in my position asked my advice, I would say, “Save your money and your energy.” The journey, for me, became the challenge early on. I wanted to know if I could do it. I wanted to test my boundaries, I wanted to see if I could leave these four walls and find out just how bad the payback would be. It was also about testing a different location, spending time with my mother and giving my husband a break. So, I had a lot of different fuels feeding the engine, if you know what I mean and, without even one, I might not have made the trip. In the end, because I left early and Dr. Chia didn’t really give me anything, it was purely the challenge. And I’ve decided that is enough. It bolstered my confidence and reinforced how resilient I am — we are.

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With my mother outside Dr. Chia’s office.

Here’s what I thought about Dr. Chia before seeing him: I knew his son was sick with ME and recovered. I knew that Dr. Chia believes that enteroviruses are the root cause of this illness and that he has conducted studies that supported his theory, but the rest of the ME research community hasn’t taken up that torch and done bigger, better studies to replicate. I thought he would offer Equilibrant, his Chinese herb formula with which many people have had some success, and he might consider antivirals. My main impetus for seeing him was to get the testing that none of the other 40 doctors I’ve seen has done and also to see whether he thought I was a candidate for antivirals. Of course, I forgot to ask him about antivirals because I forget everything when I’m in a doctor’s office.

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My mother holding the massive binder of test results that we carted down to California and then never opened.

My appointment was at 4:15pm on a Friday, so I was worried about rush hour and LA craziness, but Google maps was accurate and it only took us half an hour to get there. His office is in a nondescript brick building in a sort of strip mall in Torrance, CA. I’m a big fan of Stephen King and liked that the office was in an area named after the possessed protagonist of The Shining. 😉 The waiting room was barren. We (my mother and I) waited about 20 minutes and then went in and had the normal nurse stuff done. I noticed she wrote on my file that I was there about “chronic fatigue” and I mentioned that it was actually ME ~ or even write “CFS”. She said, “Well, it doesn’t matter because he only sees patients with your condition.” Sigh.

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We waited probably about another 15 minutes for Dr. Chia and, when he came in, he was off like a rocket. He did not stop talking for an hour and 15 minutes. After about 10 minutes, he said I could record him, thank god, because I didn’t remember to ask and I have no memory of anything he said in those first few minutes. Dr. Chia was kind and pleasant. Not in any way intimidating or arrogant. I guess I would call him dogmatic without the ego. He seems slightly frustrated that nobody else realises enteroviruses are the root cause of so many chronic illnesses and told us many stories of other patients and studies that support his contention.

A few weeks before my appointment, I sent him a letter, a chronology of my health history and a list of my symptoms. He said that was extremely helpful and asked me very little in person about my illness, instead, he just ran down the list and discussed how my immune system had collapsed. I couldn’t help thinking none of this needed to be done in person since I was basically just a set of ears, but I know the law says I had to be there in the flesh. He also did a quick physical exam and neurological work up.

Here were his main points about my history:

  • As an infant, my immune system shifted into Th2 dominance with pneumonia and ear infections and asthma, which is an inflammatory disease. Instead of just fighting off infections with an increase in the Th1 branch of the immune system and then resetting back to equilibrium, mine shifted into Th2 and has been continually off kilter my whole life as it got hit by different viruses (bronchitis, ill while traveling in Central America, viral gastroenteritis from lake in Virginia etc. etc.). He gave an example of people who encounter the polio virus: just like the lake in Virginia, only a few out of hundreds exposed to polio will become crippled and the difference is the amount of gammaglobulin I (and others) have and my compromised immune system. He said enteroviruses are the second most common infection after the common cold and that viruses are often transmitted through water. He gave the example of Joseph Melnick at Baylor University who studied viruses that live in water from sewage contamination and spread to humans through shellfish, showers, colds and swimming. He also said the Russians wrote a paper that concluded the most common risk factors for contracting meningitis are swimming (30%), camping (20%), contact with sick people, and drinking well water.
  • Doctors repeatedly prescribed antibiotics for viruses and worsened my situation. The dark circles under my eyes are typical of this.
  • With Th2 dominance, comes allergies.
  • Night sweats are a classic sign of Th2 dominance ~ along with pain and sore throats, they are my immune system trying to fight off the viruses. But, “viruses are like weeds” and replicate exponentially. He said post-exertional malaise happens because activity causes viruses in the muscles to become metabolically active and replicate, causing pain. “The more activity you do, the more viruses replicate.”
  • Tonsillectomies are very common in ME because the body is fighting off the viruses and causing chronic sore throats (my early teenage years).
  • Vaccinations commonly cause ME and relapses (I took every vaccination I could get my hands on because I thought they were protecting me and didn’t realise they’re not for everyone).
  • He suspects a brain stem issue because of vasovagal syncope history, neck problems and dysautonomia symptoms.
  • He said that he has seen cases of ME caused by invasive dental work alone, so he thinks my history predisposed me, but having acute bronchitis, viral gastroenteritis, lots of dental work and then the flu shot all in the space of 3 months definitively tipped my immune system to ME. He said, “The flu vaccination is what did you in.”
  • My tender abdomen he said was my terminal ilium and that was typical with enteroviruses living in the wall of the small intestine.
    He said I might have contracted new infectious illnesses in the past 3 years, but, whereas healthy people fight off viruses locally (i.e: facial symptoms with a cold), I fight it off systemically and all my ME symptoms flare. My mother and I heard loud and clear that contracting another virus would be incredibly dangerous for my recovery and my future health.
  • He said that there was a sewage leak into the lake at Incline Village in 1984, before the initial ME/CFS outbreak and that everyone got sick in the summer when they jumped in the lake. He said he is the only person in the US working on enterovirus research and he has found the virus in the blood and stomach lining of patients and has also done studies (injecting mice with enteroviruses and those that were initially immune deficient died). He said the CDC will soon be reproducing his work, he hopes.

Blood test results:

  • My T-lymphocytes are okay. CD4 is a little low.
  • Echoviruses, chlamydia pneumoniae, CMV, Creatine Kinase, IgA and CRP are all negative or within range.
  • Coxsackie B 4 and 5 are high. Type 4 is very high.
  • IgG (gammaglobulin) is low. All 4 subclasses. These are the most important antibodies to neutralise enteroviruses and maintain a healthy immune system.
  • HHV 6 IgG antibodies are very high.

Treatments:

  • He mentioned interferon, but said it is a very difficult treatment and short-lived.
  • He mentioned Epivir, an HIV drug that helps about 30% of the time, but didn’t want me to consider it now.
  • He told me to watch out for lakes, rivers, shellfish and not to drink the LA tap water.
  • He said I could try sublingual vitamin B12, coQ10, magnesium and vitamin D (all of which I take except B12).
  • The most important treatment he thought I needed was 5 – 15 grams of intravenous gammaglobulin to replace what I don’t have and modulate my immune system. He kept reiterating how much sicker I would be if I caught another virus, so he thought I should get IVIG twice a year and again whenever I travel anywhere (although, he said I probably shouldn’t travel). He wanted me to see an immunologist to get it, but it’s very expensive and the immunologist would want to inject me with a pneumonia vaccine to determine whether IVIG was necessary by my immune response two weeks later (I find this all very frustrating and wish that Dr. Chia could just give me a requisition form to take to a Seattle hospital so I don’t have to go through the rigmaroll of finding another specialist to determine that I need a treatment that this specialist says I need! It’s also frustrating because I won’t let a vaccine near me for the rest of my life and some random immunologist probably won’t take Dr. Chia’s word for it). If I can’t get IVIG, he said I should get 2 mililiters of intramuscular gammaglobulin, which will last for a few months.
  • He also gave me Equilibrant, his own proprietary blend of vitamins, minerals and herbs, and told us the story of his son’s recovery once he was taking 9 pills a day. He wants me to start on ¼ pill for a month, then move up to ½ for another month. I should expect an increase in my symptoms for 7-10 days. My problem with Equilibrant is that it has a bunch of fillers and crap in it: Dextrose, titanium dioxide, Yellow #5, Blue #2, Carnuba Wax etc. I still think I’ll try it, but I haven’t gotten the nerve up yet.

Honestly, the best thing he said to me during this whole appointment was, “You’ll get there.” He said since I’m so much better now than I was last year, my body is recovering and I just have to try to avoid getting another virus. After hearing Dr. Peterson say that he has never had a patient recover, it was nice to hear Dr. Chia say that I would get there…. I know “there” will not be where I was pre-ME, but I’ll take pretty much any there over here.

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Heart Center.

I have an appointment with my GP tomorrow. It’s at 9:30am, which is about 2 hours earlier than I usually schedule appointments so that I am a functioning human being. I don’t even know if it’s worth it to see her. I basically made the appointment because I haven’t seen her in 6.5 months. I am a different person now. Last time I saw her, I still didn’t quite understand how the medical system works. I still sort of thought that doctors would search and help and communicate and dig until they figured out what was wrong with a patient. I still didn’t realise how specialists operate. Even after the first infectious disease doctor said, “You don’t have an active infection” and then, in no uncertain terms, gave me a permanent goodbye. Even after the second infectious disease doctor said, “You have chronic fatigue syndrome and, from here on out, you should work on treating the symptoms.” In other words, See ya! Even when the chronic fatigue expert spent ten minutes with me after I waited 8 months for an appointment and sent me on my way with directions to exercise read a book about pain, and try Cymbalta. It wasn’t until my second visit to the rheumatologist, that it finally clicked. He had treated me so well at my first appointment. I will never forget he said, “There is something wrong with you. It is not your job to figure it out, it’s ours.” It felt validating and I almost wept. Someone would finally take the burden of this search off my shoulders and figure out why I felt like I’m dying… But that’s not the way it works. When I went to see him again a year later, the first thing he said was, “Why are you here? Chronic fatigue syndrome is an infectious disease.” Ah. Click. Finally I see. Dr. House is only on a tv show, stupid! Specialists spend 15 minutes max listening to your story, run the standard tests, and you’re done. If the tests are negative, you will never hear from them again. And, even if the tests are positive ~ like the time they found two toxic goiters on my thyroid and had to kill the whole lot with radioiodine and I had to figure out from a pamphlet and a bunch of inquiries that were shuffled from one person to another how to get my synthetic hormones and whether I should have follow-up visits with someone ~ sometimes you won’t hear from them then, either.

I had a yearly check-up with my GP 9 days before I was hit by ME. I distinctly remember saying to her that day, “My biggest problem is my neck” ~ meaning the degenerative disc problems in my cervical spine that have plagued me since my early 30s. We talked a lot about my job. I was having difficulty sitting at a desk all day after years of being on my feet. She thought, because of the stress involved, that it might not be the job for me. I remember her saying exactly that: “Are you sure this is the right job for you?” I shrugged and thought, Maybe not. But I still love it. In some ways, I think that sentiment has coloured the treatment I received once I came down with ME. I think a lot of us (my doctor, my boss, my family, and I) thought my problem was caused by job-related stress and lack of sleep.

That is another way I am a different person now than when I saw her 6+ months ago. Now, my awareness of my body and physical sensations are extremely fine-tuned. It is laughable to me (and tragically sad) that, in my confusion during that first year, I was almost persuaded that my sickness could have been caused by 1) bowel problems, 2) vasovagal reactions, 3) stress and anxiety, 4) my pain killers, 5) my birth control pills. When you are scared and in foreign territory, you want to latch on to ANY explanation that is said in a rational way from an expert authority. I suddenly understand how false confessions are coerced out of murder suspects. Maybe you’re right, Dr. E, maybe it’s just IBS. Phew! Even though I had had my share of health problems in my life, I was completely naive about how this medical journey would unfold itself. It is tragically sad and not so laughable that I didn’t trust myself 100%. I was SO SICK. My bowels? Stress? No, not this. Sleeping normally, then swimming in sweat. Running a little cold, then incapacitated by bone-wracking chills. Steady, then dizzy. Confident, then fearful. Strong, then shaky, then weak. Memory like a steel trap, then uncertainty about all details. Aches in my neck, then deep body-wide pain. Occasional headache, then 24-hours-a-day migraine for months. Able to bound up and down stairs, then legs not working. Energy, then none. Working, then housebound. Well… then sick. Don’t doubt yourselves, ever.

So, why am I even going back to my GP? I want to talk about my application for disability. She has known me for years and she should know that, even though I mostly saw her when I had chest infections, I have always been an upbeat, energetic person and ME caused an abrupt and permanent change. I must stay unemotional. The day last year that a few tears dropped in her office sealed my fate as someone that needed therapy and an antidepressant. My chart note says “Stress reaction, emotional.” I did what she said and started seeing a therapist, but 15 months of weekly visits later and nothing has changed. Nothing except I’ve spent 50 minutes each week crying about how I don’t know how to accept this new life and I don’t know how to stay hopeful and calm when my symptoms flare. Which is always.

I’ve cried more in the last year than I have in the 39 years before. I get overwhelmed sometimes with the surety that my husband will reach a breaking point and leave me. Or that I will somehow have to find the strength to leave him so he can have a life and I can be freed from the unrelenting guilt that I carry. The other night, my husband said, “I’m not going anywhere. I love you deeply.” I sobbed: “But you didn’t fall in love with this.” I spat out the word “this”. I said it with a grimace of distaste, as if I were talking about a maggot-infested, rabid rat that was sitting on my chest. And I actually flinched at the knowledge that the revulsion was about myself. I try to stop my brain from doing this. I try to remind myself that I still have value, even sick. But it’s hard now that I have very little interaction with the outside world. I can tell myself a thousand times that I am not the disease and my self is not sick ~ my core is still the same ~ but I don’t really believe it. I sure feel sick at the core. Or, at least, that there are many, many layers of sick surrounding that central self, which is still the me I know and love. But, if those layers rule the body, who really cares what’s in the center? If it can’t express itself or figure out a way to thrive, what’s the point? How do I enrich the world when I rarely laugh, can’t talk for more than an hour each day, have nothing interesting to say…? And how oh how do I find joy in my own life when everything I enjoy takes energy that I simply don’t have? I have to find joyful activities that can be done lying down with my eyes closed, day after day?

Anyway, my husband pointed to my heart and said, “I fell in love with what’s in there and that hasn’t changed.”

I thought, Yeah, it has. But, I admit, I felt another renewed resolve to fight. If not for myself, then for my husband and the person with whom he fell in love.

sarah and dave 5

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I will rise. I will return.

Oh how cruel it is that when you really need to write, you can’t. I’ve been so very sick. Apologies to my friends and family for my neglect of correspondence and birthdays (everyone is born in April). Apologies to my husband for having to pick up even more slack while wading through thicker clouds of my fear. Apologies to my dogs who are not only getting no exercise, but who have been rejecting the recently beautiful spring days to lie indoors in the dark next to their ailing Momma. Yesterday, I took a blanket and pillow outside and lay on a dog bed in the garden so we could all get some fresh air. They danced excitedly about thinking I might actually be trying to walk my daily laps again (long ago they gave up their hopes that I might take them to an actual park ~ my putting on shoes now means I’m leaving them to go to a doctor appointment and they hardly raise an eyebrow) and then sulked with heads low when they saw I was inert, as usual.

I think I am worse overall than I have ever been. This is definitely the longest stretch of BAD I’ve ever had. By “sick” and by “bad” I mean unable to do even the little things and needing to stay in bed most of the time. I have been so dizzy and so shaky. I’m chilled, I’m exhausted, my muscles have retracted into hard, fibrous knots. I have the ever-present headache and sore throat and noise sensitivity. My sleep is dismal; I feel utterly tortured by the loss of quality repair time at night. My bed is a battleground: the covers too weighty, the mattress too hot, the pillow to low, the air too cold. I am at once completely unconscious and aware of my surroundings. I am so tired and groggy, but, while I’m dreaming, I am well aware that I am in my room having a dream and that it would be much better to be deeper asleep. But the worst thing about this last week is it has literally felt as if I may not have enough ATP to fuel my lungs, my heart, my brain. There is a point, whether I’m right or wrong, where it feels very obviously like my mitochondria don’t work ~ it is physical, as if I can feel the millions of engines in my organs sputtering and stalling. I’m giving gas, but they just wheeze and die. It feels like, if I read, I then may not be able to speak. Or, if I expend the energy to sit up, I may not be able to breathe. And suddenly the headache and the pain and the stiffness ~ none of it is important because, even if my heart keeps beating, my brain may just flatline.

Yesterday, I did something I’ve never done: I prayed out loud for help. I prayed for this to be taken away. I prayed to go back to where I was when I thought it was bad a year ago or for help for my husband or for us to win the lotto so we could stop this speeding train towards homelessness and poverty. You think I’m being melodramatic? I’m not. I don’t even know how to muster the energy to apply for disability or talk to the bank about our mortgage. A long phone call with the health insurance company (they show termination of coverage at the beginning of January for some reason) yesterday sent me to bed for 3 hours to “recover”. Contrary to how it may seem (I am acutely aware that I rarely gloss over the mental anguish caused by this disease), I really did think I would get better. I thought I would look back on this rough patch as a period of growth ~ a rototilling of the deep grooves and scar tissue of habitual thought and thoughtless action. I would be receptive and do the work and then this coffin-like chrysalis would metamorphose into a new stress-free career and I would feel blessed for my period of attrition. I am now worried that I may not ever work again and, one day soon, our savings will simply be gone.

The good news is, when I was able to get out of bed on Sunday and go about my (abbreviated) routine, I felt a flush of triumph like never before: I came through it. I am (carefully, slowly) walking and talking. You can’t take me down for long. I will rise. I will return.

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How My Illness Began … Part 1

[Although I’ve already posted an excerpt from my diary about those months at the beginning of my illness, I wanted to tell the whole story. It will have to be in increments because it is exhausting physically and emotionally to relive those days. But, I don’t want to forget them. Also, I realise that this was the beginning of what stopped my life in its tracks, but perhaps not the beginning of ME, so I’ll eventually have to write a prequel to this Part 1.]

I was sitting at our dining table at the beginning of November 2011, writing Christmas cards when I was hit with a wave of nausea, chills and exhaustion. Whoa, I’ve been at this too long, I thought. My husband was on the couch watching television, so I curled up on the recliner and fell asleep immediately. When I woke up an hour or so later, I knew something was very wrong. I was shuddering with chills, my teeth were chattering, I felt infected or infested.You have to come to bed, something’s wrong and I don’t think I’ll be able to make it back downstairs if I need you, I told my husband. I crawled to bed, he made me a hot water bottle. I was dressed, wrapped in a blanket, under the duvet with a hot water bottle, curled in a ball, shivering ~ practically convulsing ~ with chills. I tried for about half an hour to cover my ears, I thought if I moved my hand out from under the blankets, shifted my position in any way, I might die. I have found that severe chills are as debilitating as severe vertigo and severe pain. I fell asleep for a brief amount of time and, when I woke up again, I was drenched. There was sweat coming out of every pore in my body. And not just beads of sweat ~ rivulets of sweat. My bed was wet, I could have wrung out the sheets. Sweat ran down my legs, down my chest, pooled in my belly button, my back was slick. My ears were wet, my hair was wet, my knees were wet. I was flabbergasted. Never, ever had I experienced anything like this. Such an immediate and systemic response to a pathogen. I could only hope that this would be it and be thankful that the chills and sickness hadn’t lasted days. If the fever had already arrived and broken, then maybe this would be short-lived. I spent the rest of the night plunging in and out of fever dreams, shaking as violently as I had with the chills. In the morning, it subsided. I was spent, exhausted, traumatised, but I thought it was over. I was able to continue work that week. Besides being a little unnerved, weak and tired, I was able to get on with life. However, the chill/sweats cycle happened again a few weeks later… and a few weeks later. I finally went to my doctor. When this is happening, I told her, I feel like I’m dying. I know that sounds melodramatic, but, honestly, when I’m in the grips of it, it feels like there is absolutely no way I could manage going to work that week ~ maybe even month. It feels like I should be hospitalised. I asked her to test me for malaria because that was the only thing I could find in my research that had such debilitating, but cyclical symptoms.

As the end of the year approached, I got worse. I was pushing myself very hard at work, trying to wrap everything up so that I could take vacation days when my Mom visited. The episodes were occurring more frequently and leaving me progressively more sick and weak. I started working some days from home, dragging myself to the computer for 8 hours, over the course of the entire day, crawling into bed periodically when I couldn’t be upright anymore. Two days after Christmas, I was told the malaria test was positive, but they wanted to retest because I hadn’t traveled to a malaria country in over 7 years. My Mother arrived on December 30th. I was doing okay, I picked her up at the airport. That night, as we were sitting at the dining table eating soup, I was hit out of the blue with incredible vertigo. It was like being on a tilt-a-whirl, I gripped the edge of the table and looked at my husband, wide-eyed. Oh shit shit shit, WHAT IS GOING ON? Never, before or after, have I felt the room spinning so violently. I went straight to bed. I don’t really remember the next 5 days. I remembering waking up, hearing my Mother and husband downstairs watching the ball drop in Times Square. I lay in bed, nauseous, dizzy, chilled and sweating. I couldn’t eat, I clung to the walls walking to the bathroom, I just kept thinking, I don’t want to die. In the past, I had had food poisoning that could have killed me, gone into anaphylactic shock that should have killed me, passed out and had vital signs so low the EMTs’ field notes say they couldn’t get a blood pressure reading, but nothing made me feel like I was truly going to die like this did. I wrote goodbye letters to my family. I wrote down all of our passwords and account information for my husband, I wrote instructions for my funeral. I did all this with a pencil, lying on my side, under the covers, sure I didn’t have much time. At some point, in the middle of some night, my husband took me to the hospital to get my blood drawn because parasites are more evident in the middle an episode. But, from the beginning of the chills to the time they actually got around to taking my blood, 6 hours had passed, so I knew it was a wasted trip.
This took me a month to write. Stay tuned for Part 2.