Further downward

 The mind is a powerful thing.  Science has shown that thinking different thoughts literally changes the brain structure and chemistry and can 'rewire' it.  There are examples of victims of abuse experiencing dissociative amnesia where the trauma is significant enough for a person to extract it from their memory completely.  In some instances they will create new memories to replace the repressed experiences and live in a world that their mind has devised with no clue of the true reality.  You also hear stories of amputees experiencing phantom limb syndrome where they literally feel pain in the appendages that have been removed and no longer there. 

 It's hard for me to explain to anyone how I was successful in a short-lived attempt to carry on normally.  I have always been stubborn and strong willed.  Whenever I put my mind to something, I am going to follow through with it til the bitter end.  No one wants to be sick or in pain, I was desperate to have everything return to normal and did whatever it took to get there.  I had bits of relief due to Vicodin and Prednisone that allowed my insane behaviors to continue.  Yet it was my powerful mind that created the greatest substance to help me cope.  Denial became my drug.  The more I took of it, the more everything was going to be okay and it was incredibly addicting.

The weeks prior to my emergency room visit, I had been going to the track, doing calisthenics, working out as usual.  I was afraid to get off track.  I had been sitting around too much during the week I had fevers and “strep” throat, I didn’t want to get out of shape.  So I jumped back in right where I left off.  I noticed I felt a little more sore than usual, and bit more stiff than usual.  I convinced myself it was because I had been too lazy while I was sick, sitting around, doing nothing.  I just needed ride the pain out for a bit, and I’d be back to normal in no time.  I was surprised at how much this little strep infection had taken out of me.  My hips, knees and ankles were sore, but I was a runner, and I have had pain similar to this before. Yet, the pain didn’t go away.  After a few days of running, I felt pain in places I’ve never felt sore before, in muscles and joints that I had barely even used in my workouts.  I felt like I was developing tennis elbow; I had never had pain in my elbow a day in my life. I took a couple days off from my workouts to let my body rest, and to finish my ten days of antibiotics. By day ten of antibiotics, I started to feel okay. 

As I laid in my bedroom staring at the ceiling I thought about my recent vacation to the coast of California.  All the stress of being sick and working a demanding job had really gotten to me. I went out of town to a much milder climate in the Malibu area to visit a friend and get my mind off my winter blues.  Even though I was starting to feel a little better, I began to notice I was breaking out on my forehead.  I was kind of embarrassed to go out on the town and to been seen by my good looking guy pal who lived there.  I showed him a lump that was beginning to form on my ankle.  He thought it might be a bug bite.

I couldn’t keep up all the physical activity for long.  The pain got worse and worse.  At work, I couldn’t get up out of my chair by simply standing. I had to push myself up with my arms to stand.  And at home, before I knew it, I had to pull myself up off the floor by grabbing onto the beam.  I was rapidly and progressively getting worse by the day.  My ability to keep up my coping mechanism was diminishing.

Pushing the limit

Once again, I mentally prepared myself to walk before stepping foot out of my car when I arrived at the hospital.  The short distance to the hospital doors seemed like a lifetime away.  What normally would take me about thirty seconds was going to take a lot longer.  I eventually made it into the emergency room and checked in.  The staff asked me what my symptoms were.  I told them I was in intense pain, and they looked at me funny, as if to say, “Sure you are.  You are probably just one of those addicts looking for someone to give you more narcotics.”  I also showed them the strange bumps all over my body.  It looked as if it could be a rash.  

 I had two different looking rashes.  The bumps on my arms appeared in a cluster, one bump in the middle with several bumps around it almost in the shape of a flower one would have drawn in first grade.  They didn't itch or hurt, so I still wasn't sure if it was in fact a rash or what.  The ones on my forehead looked much smaller and could be dismissed as acne. 

I was shown into a room and seen by a doctor immediately.  The doctor, Dr. Stacey, asked me for my medical history, the usual, how long I have been experiencing these symptoms, and other pertinent information such as allergies.  I thought about it hard and started from the most recent thing I could think of.  I went to Dr. Cluck the first week of February because I was having fevers, night sweats, chills, malaise, swollen lymph glands and other typical cold and flu symptoms.  My fevers were so high and after several days of 104 degree temperature, I was afraid it could permanently fry my brain.  He had me do the typical, “Open your mouth and say, ‘Ah’,” bit, and held out the tongue depressor with two reluctant fingers and was cautious to not get too close of a look.  He took one look at me and diagnosed me with strep throat.  He never gave me any kind of test for strep, he frankly just wanted to get me out of there so he wouldn’t catch whatever bug I had.  He prescribed me ten days of penicillin antibiotics.    

I told Dr. Stacey that I had had flu like symptoms for about five days, and tried to allow my body to heal before seeing that doctor.  I had never been to the emergency room before in my life but this was my second visit to the ER that month already, the previous time I came due to blood in my urine.  Other than that I had no medical history of anything.  He thought that perhaps I had waited too long to get treatment for the strep infection and that it could have turned into something much worse, namely, rheumatic fever.  He told me the treatment for rheumatic fever was somewhat controversial because it called for prescribing steroids.  However, he had never seen anyone with anything like what I was experiencing and did not feel comfortable giving me steroids at that point.  They took a bunch of blood for lab tests and said they wouldn’t really know anything until the tests came back.  He instructed me to follow up with his wife, Dr. Barry, who worked in the clinic next door. 

“She’s hard to get an appointment with,” he said, “but tell them I sent you.  You’d be better off going to her over Dr. Cluck.”  (Looking back, the name alone should have tipped me off to find another doctor.)

Luckily, I got in to see Dr. Barry the very next day.  I went over all my symptoms and history again.  She wanted me to follow up with a rheumatologist due to the arthritis and possibility of rheumatic fever.  She went on to say, “In all my 20 years of practice, I have never seen anyone with anything like what you have.  If it is rheumatic fever, I do not know enough about it to feel comfortable treating you for it at this point.  No offense, but this is a total mystery to me, and it makes me that much more interested in your case.” 

“What do I have to do to get into a rheumatologist?  I don’t even know where I’d find one around here.”  I said. 

She told me she knew a good rheumatologist up in Reno, three hours away.  “He is also very hard to get into.  If I give him a call today, you might be able to get in in about three to four months.”

I broke down and began to sob inconsolably.  “I can’t go on living like this for another three or four months.  I am in excruciating pain.  I can hardly move.  I look like a freak with these rashes all over my body and neither of us even knows that I’m not dying.” 

“I will call him today, and there could be a chance there is a cancellation, if he can fit you in, you have to go, no exceptions.”  She assured me he was at the top of his game and would be able to diagnose any rheumatic fever or other “rheuma” problems, as she called it on the doctor’s note.  She prescribed me narcotic pain killers and sent me home.

I took the pain pills religiously every four to six hours.  I even staggered the doses so I wouldn’t feel them wearing off.  When I would roll over in bed in my sleep in the middle of the night, I could tell when the meds were beginning to wear off and I'd take more.  Truthfully, the pain killers just barely took the edge off.  My pain scale went from ten, the worst, down to an eight or seven.  As I laid there in bed, all I could think of was the pain. 

A lot of people have used the phrase that they feel like they’ve been “hit by a train.”  Well, that’s exactly how I felt, except it felt like the train was still crushing me. It was a pain that felt like every bone and joint in my body was shattered. Standing was painful, so I sat to try to relieve the pain, but sitting was painful, so I lied down to try to alleviate it, but nothing worked.  It didn’t matter what I did, the pain was there.  I convinced myself I had to somehow manage to carry on as normally as possible.  I had to brainwash myself the pain was all in my head. 

I was determined to keep living my life.  I was not going to let the pain rule me.  So I went to the gym.  I got on the elliptical and powered through. With every step I told myself, “It’s all in your head. You are tough. You can push through it.  You can un-imagine it.” I took pride in knowing how tough I was, it gave me a rush. It made me feel superior to any other person in that gym. It made me feel superior to my condition as well, I was in control of my body and I would tell it how it was allowed to feel.  I would tell my body if and when it was allowed to feel pain, or be exhausted. Mind over matter; and my mind was powerful enough to beat my body.  Looking back I have no clue how I did this and realize I was going insane.