in this case, it took only one.

finally, last thursday, i couldn’t put it off any longer and i had to go into the hospital. so *h and i packed up and off we went to the local ER where they were able to pick up the pieces of this shattered blogger and restore me to some semblance of functioning.

but i guess i should back up, huh?

since this is now the second time i have had this baffling medical event happen, i will tell you about it- more so that you can be wise to it so than you can be voyeuristic. supposedly this never happens in adults, and supposedly the last time this happened it was a one-time mystery…

i can’t remember if i wrote about this too in-depth or not, but i had about a 12-week period in detroit when i couldn’t keep down any food. like really not any food. so i kept going to the ER dehydrating, and they would give me fluids and tell me i had a virus and send me home. finally i had to be hospitalized for about 2 weeks and i needed nutrition by IV (not so fun) and after lots of meds we finally figured out, quite by accident, that i had an atypical migraine (an abdominal migraine, which is a migraine variant). apparently, this presentation is normally seen only in children which is why they didn’t even think of it in an adult.

ok, fast forward to now.

about september i lost my appetite. at first i went down to about 1 meal a day, then a bit of food a day, then eating once every few days with some powerade or gatorade in between. i spoke to my neurologist and i started ensures to keep up my nutrition but a few weeks ago i went off of food altogether and i was on 2 ensures a day and nothing else. when *h and the kids started falling apart i went up to 3 ensures a day, but i was getting weaker and sicker every day and was basically bedridden.

when it got to the point where i was afraid to drive (we weren’t sure if i would faint or not), and i couldn’t be upright for more than a few minutes at a time, and i was waking up at night with my heart racing, and it was clear that the ensures just weren’t cutting it, we went into the hospital to get some help.

and i mentioned to them about the atypical migraine thing in the past when i couldn’t tolerate food, and that maybe this was that same thing.

but the doctor was sceptical and didn’t think so.

so he did some other stuff and gave me fluids and ran some labs and treated some things and gave me some meds and was just plain perplexed. and he finally consulted with the neurologist on call and asked him what he thought they should do if it was an atypical migraine not that it was, mind you- but just in case…

and, lo and behold, it was…

so within 48 hours i was able to eat solid food for the first time in weeks.

go, hospitals.

go, doctor who was willing to humor me and treat what i was telling him was wrong even though he thought it was probably crazy and it was a total long-shot.

and go intuition and listening to your gut even when people tell you that you are crazy and that you probably have an eating disorder (which multiple people did) or that you are just depressed (which multiple did) or that you are making a big deal out of nothing (when you know for sure that you aren’t).

but most important, as always, is this message: don’t be afraid to be an advocate for yourself. you don’t need to be obnoxious or pushy or rude, but you do need to be firm and insistent. you do need to be respected and taken seriously. your life and your health are too important to end up in the gutter.

trust me; i’ve been there.

 

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