I'm Not Crazy After All!

Okay, I know what your thinking. Just keep those judgments about my sanity to yourself, or the rumors might make it back to me and make me even more paranoid....

Here's the deal. For the past year or so I've been at war with my body. Or rather, my body has been at war with me. Following a series of unpleasant health changes I swallowed my pride and admitted to my symptoms. After some hmmms and huhs some lab work was done and I had a label for my madness. That's all well and good, but that label also came with a "magic pill" that was supposed to fix the madness. It didn't. It wasn't that it was a bad choice, both my medical mind and the doctor's said the medication, when adjusted to my needs, would fix the problem.

After a year of blood draws and medication changes I can honestly say that I don't think anything has drastically changed. In fact I have continued to experience a myriad of quirky problems, some I could explain away, some I could not. It has left me many a times declaring that aliens have taken over my body, because I certainly don't recognize the way its acting as being me.

Then enters that whole "one closed door, opens a window somewhere" thing. About six weeks ago my doctor suddenly decided to leave her practice and move across the state. (I don't really blame her, I don't want to live here either.) But it left me with a bit of a quandary. Do I stop pretending I'm going to get any better and chuck the doctor thing all together, or do I find a specialist to see if there is anything else that can be done.

I had my first appointment with the specialist yesterday and I'm happy to report that I'm not crazy, and my body hasn't been taken over by aliens. When I showed the new doctor my latest test results and reviewed what had been done, I included the fact that I wasn't really experiencing any difference and sheepishly admitted to the fact that everything about my health seemed to be slightly messed up.

To my relief she didn't "hmmm" then say, "that's just part of getting older". She looked right at me and said, "Well, of course you don't feel good. And here's why." She then went on to tell me with realistic and medically founded reasons why my body hates me so badly and what I can do about it. She even brought up a few more things that I was having problems with that I didn't want to bother a doctor about, even though it bothered me.

We don't have all the answers yet, I had to get poked with another needle and have a few more tests done to make sure we're really headed in the right direction. But, I'm definitely feeling less discouraged today. The sad part? It wasn't that my family doctor or myself were really wrong. We were following the standard treatments, we just never realized that if it wasn't working there were other alternatives. The doctor and I both were going on the basic knowledge any medical professional has about my problem. Neither one of us really thought to look any deeper than that.

Had I taken that initial diagnosis and spent a event a little time digging deeper into the problem I would have realized why my body was acting so weirdly. At least a little bit.

So, here's my point. There are things we know, and things we think we know, but 99% of the time there is probably a lot more to it than we are able to recognize. Never try to assume anything. Never try to judge a situation outside of your own control. Always be humble and willing to learn. If the path your on doesn't seem to be working any more, and you can no longer see the door, look for a window to jump out of. Um, yeah. You get my point.

And, never tell your doctor that your sure you're possessed by some sadistic creature from another planet.