Previously Unexplored

I am so tired. I am exhausted and frustrated and I just woke up.

I have spent the last week dealing with a mystery illness that causes extreme abdominal pain, dizziness and forced bodily functions that nobody wants to have to deal with. Ever.

I have seen three doctors this week, been to the ER, Urgent Care and a HMO office. I’ve gotten a CT, sonogram (owwwwwwwww with a tender tummy) and three variations of X-Rays which included drinking an annoying amount of really disgusting barium. I’ve had so much blood taken for tests that all of the veins in my hands have collapsed and it was a joke trying to get access to the ones in the crook of my arm. I was in so much pain and so exhausted that I only went in to work on Thursday and even then had to leave early. Not such a great thing as an intern, my bosses are sympathetic but that is only going to last for so long.

I am so tired of this.

I’ve been dealing with ‘episodes’ of this mystery ailment since middle school. However, those episodes were few and far between and always happened at night. Not so much on the fun side, but at least I could deal with it in the privacy of my own home with family helping out and taking care of me.

Over the years, the meds that I’ve been taking for this have stopped working. Episodes used to be solved with a few Advil/Aleve/Whatever I could grab out of the medicine cabinet faster and a hot water bottle. That stopped working and so I moved on to drugs from the UK that a friend of mine recommended and that he brought me.  That stopped helping earlier this year. I’ve tried pain killers and non-traditional medicine and while those help a lot, there is only so long that I can go around being drugged out of my mind. There is no warning before these episodes, one second I am fine and walking around, the next, on the floor wishing for unconsciousness.

The episodes this week have been fast and furious and have left me completely spent. I don’t know how long this is going to last, or if they will ever figure out what is going on and be able to ‘fix’ it.

I am so completely exhausted.