What I know of life:
Life is ever changing.
We are dealt the cards we are dealt.
Chapters end and chapters begin.
This kind of party is open invite with mandatory attendance and there is no dismissing it.
—
I remember that night. The night that I went to bed for the last time as a healthy overachieving active fifteen-year-old.
I had scary dreams. Dreams that I was ill. Dreams that I couldn’t catch a break.
When I woke up the next morning; I thought I was victim to a restless nights sleep and wired brain. But what I came to find was those dreams were real.
Those scary dreams were a part of my reality.
I was now ill.
That first morning I was ITCHY. I remember walking out to the kitchen to find my mom cooking breakfast and asked that she take a look at my back.
I sensed her hesitation.
She immediately asked how I was feeling. I said fine? She told me to go lay down on the couch for a bit till breakfast was ready, she was going to call the clinic for an appointment.
Not long after I had laid down on the couch, her hesitation was validated. I was dog tired. I felt like an elephant was sitting on top of me. I began to see hives on my abdomen …they itched SO bad. My mom came out to the living room and asked me again how I was feeling. This time my response changed to, “not too well”.
Every.
Morning.
For.
Five.
Days.
My parents drove me to the clinic.
I had developed pleurisy, swollen extremities, hives the size of soccer balls…
Blood was drawn.
I was tested for Mono.
Results came back…
Negative.
All I did was sleep.
I knew my physician felt helpless. You could see it in her eyes. We kept doing testing….my blood vessels were non existent. I was so dehydrated the techs had a hard time finding them.
Then luck walked in.
Another Peds physician knocked on the door. Shared with my parents that he had been in the know of their daughter (me) “the mystery patient”. He happened to attend a symposium that talked of this misunderstood and relatively new syndrome called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). With permission he would like to examine me and encouraged that we seek treatment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Of course my parents gave consent. We booked an appointment. Four months later I was in the “land of 1o,000 lakes” staying on Mayo Clinics campus in Rochester, Minnesota.
Not the way I thought I’d spend Easter… but I’d take it.
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