6AM. I woke up. I had to pee. I stumbled into the bathroom, labored to sit down and stand back up again. As I walked back over to the bed, I collapsed. With everything I had gone through the past 5 weeks, I seriously thought this might be the end. Everything went black.
I lost count of how many times over the past several weeks I questioned
if I was dying. At one point I had resigned myself to accepting death
as an outcome. I told myself to quit thinking I could die, but it was
still hard to stop the racing thoughts of everything I hadn't yet done
with my life. I had barely even begun to live. Funny, how in these moments you realize what and who is most important
in life. All the sudden everything else seems so trivial when all you
want is to live. I thought about how ridiculous I was in my obsession
to have a good looking body, when now all I wanted was a body that had a
pulse. Or complaining about my fat legs, when now all I wanted was legs strong enough to hold me up when I walked. I thought about the
people I cared about, and wondered if they knew I was thinking about
them right at that moment.
I was too stubborn to die. I was lying in a heap on the floor of the hotel room when I came back to consciousness. The last thing I remember was my face slamming into the wall as I lost all control over my body. I crawled over to the bed and had no clue what I was supposed to do next. Should I call an ambulance or go to the emergency room? If I went to the emergency room, I would lose my appointment that was a miracle to get in the first place. I called my parents, 800 miles away, and let
them know what had happened. They felt completely helpless to do
anything for me in that moment, but still got on the road as soon as
they could to make it down.
I decided I had to continue on with my scheduled plan for the day and get to my doctor appointment. He would at least be able to get me to the emergency room if he thought it was necessary and I firmly believed he would have answers for me. I knew I couldn't drive at that point, and had started popping more pain pills. I decided to call for a taxi and headed off to the rheumatologist, still in my pajamas. I still had no clue how I was going to make it back to my apartment over 200 miles away.
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The rheumatologist unfortunately didn't have an immediate answers for me. The only visible signs of my illness were the rashes. They ordered more blood tests and prescribed me prednisone (steroid).
I took a taxi cab back to the hotel; a small $60 fair round trip. I started making plans to get back home. I couldn't take the bus because I couldn't leave my car behind so far away. I called the only person I could think of that might be able to come pick me up. I felt so embarrassed to ask such a favor of someone who was practically a stranger to me. He was a coworker, a law enforcement officer, and I knew it was his day off. I tried not to give him a lot of details about my situation, just that it was kind of an emergency and I needed a ride. He was able to take the airport shuttle up to Reno and drive me in my car back to my place. We stopped for burritos along the way and I paid for his meal. It was the least I could do.
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