I was healthy, active and young with the rest of my life ahead of me,
until two months after my 27th birthday. In the time frame of almost overnight, I
became incapacitated, borderline bed ridden and thought I was dying. I went from running five miles a day and
working an arduous job as a wildland firefighter to hobbling around my 400
square foot apartment like a 97 year old woman, scared that the end was near. I could not deny there was something terribly
wrong with my health, but had no idea what was wrong. Naturally, horrible worst-case scenarios roll
through one’s head. Cancer? Multiple
Sclerosis? Lou Gehrig’s Disease? Or even something extremely rare that only a
handful of doctors in the nation knew anything about.
It was February 20th in Mammoth Lakes, CA; my downstairs
studio apartment was buried ten feet under snow. I had a huge gap underneath my door which
created quite a draft. It was bone
chilling. I had a wood stove, but moved
in too late to get fire wood loaded on my patio. The only source of heat was a tiny electric
wall heater. I huddled in front of it
every night, and played solitaire with an old worn out deck of cards. I lived alone in this relatively new place
and barely knew anyone. I didn’t even
have cable television to keep me company, so solitaire became the only thing
left to keep my mind off my health. I
had been sick with a fierce cold/flu, and feeling increasingly stiff with
intense pain. Dragging my weak body up
off the floor became harder and harder each day. Yet, I still tried to maintain some level of
optimism. I told myself I was just stiff
from sitting around so much, since I had become unable to exercise. Or I was extra tired/sore from exercising too
hard. Every day I told myself I would
probably start feeling better tomorrow.
As I sat there that night, I studied my ankles.
A week prior I had developed a swollen lump on one, and thought it could
be a bug bite. It grew to be about the
size of a golf ball. It made my entire
ankle feel stiff. Just then I noticed I
had developed a lump on the other ankle as well. An alarm went off in my head saying, “Stop
procrastinating and get to the hospital A.S.A.P!” For the first time I knew
something was wrong. I worried, “What if
these are tumors?” and with my health deteriorating what if it was cancer? I scooted on my bottom over toward the wood beam
in the middle of the room to help pull myself up off the floor. However, my body would not cooperate; reality
slapped me in the face. I could not
stand up off the floor. I was hysterical. My heart was racing and my breath felt
shallow and labored. I tried hard to
calm myself down because I HAD to get up off that floor. With whatever strength was left in my upper
body, I struggled to stand by pulling myself up on the wood beam.
I came to terms that I needed to go to a doctor immediately even if it
meant the worst—that there was nothing they could do, and I would eventually
die. I had no one to take me to the
hospital, I barely knew anyone in town. I
was also embarrassed to be so young and for the first time in my life…
disabled? I was far too stubborn to call
for help anyway, and didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I called my boss. I was choked up as I tried to hold back the
tears. I didn’t want anyone to see or
hear me cry; I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m
really sick and going to the hospital. I
won’t be in tomorrow.”
It took intense laboring to put on my coat. I could barely lift my arms to put them into the
sleeves and I had to lift my legs with my arms to step into my snow boots. Mentally, I prepared to start the journey of
climbing the stairway to get to my car.
At this point, my upper body was the only thing left to get me up
them. I grabbed onto the railing and
pulled my body up; each step was only possible by a combination of lifting my
legs up with my arms and pulling my body up by the railing. Making each stair by some miracle of God. Each step I took was accompanied by
excruciating pain. It took me nearly ten minutes to reach the top of one flight
of stairs and I had to rest due to the overwhelming pain and fatigue. The temperatures were below freezing but I resigned to the cold. There was
nothing I could do to get to a warmer place any faster. I eventually got to my car, pulled myself up
by the handle, and drove to the emergency room.
