I am a 31 year old mom of 1, previously divorced and now remarried.  I work as a consultant for a major oil company in project management.   So lets get into the real background.  Growing up I never really had any major health issues.  I was not ever athletic, suffered from Asthma which put me out a lot but now have grown out of it.  Asthma is very common for the area I live in, so it was no big deal.

When I was 18 I headed off for my first semester of college.  While there I decided to take up running in an effort to not gain the freshman 15 (ha! I think i ended up with the freshman 50 by Sophomore year).  Looking back it seems like such a silly thing to be concerned with.  A month or so in I started having shooting pains in my legs.  I figured it was just muscle pain.  I also had tingling but didn’t think anything of it.  One morning I was in the middle of a voice lesson when I suddenly collapsed.  I had lost all feeling and function from the waist down.  I didn’t know what was happening or what to do.  I just started crying.  My voice instructor went into a panic when he realized I couldn’t walk and had urinated all over myself.  He immediately picked me up and ran me to the hospital (amazing guy!).  It was about 5 blocks away.  I was immediately flown home and admitted in to the hospital.  They ran test after test for a week straight and could find nothing wrong.  They stuck needles in my legs that I couldn’t feel, shock tests and more and could not explain what was happening.  It was intermittent.  At times feeling would return but I would have weakness.  I was sent home to try physical therapy and chiropractic care.  My parents were livid.  Their immediate thought was that chiropractors were a joke.  But I started treatment with the chiropractor and it seemed to be working.

She focused on my head and neck area which I thought to be very bizarre as the doctors were focused on my lower back and some bulging discs I have.  4 months later i was back to normal and able to return to school, with no answers, other than the doctors telling me it was all in my head and people thinking I was crazy…  Little did we know at the time it literally was all in my head.  I went along with my college life as if nothing had happened.  I continued physical therapy and focused on my studies and partying of course!  6 months later I was having a vision problem in my left eye.  I went to the optometrist where they noted my retina was starting to detach.  I was scheduled for a procedure to have it lasered.  The doctor mentioned it was very rare to have at my age.  But again once it was fixed, I didn’t think anything of it.  This ended up being another big piece to the puzzle.  I don’t have the greatest memory, never have, but maybe a year later I started having issues with my menstruel cycle.  I guess I always had.  I was never regular unless I was on the pill, but things were getting increasingly painful and making me sick.  At the time I worked part time at a gym while going to school.  I was set to close one night when I started experiencing intense pain in my lower abdomen and pelvic area to the point that I felt I needed to get to an ER.  I called the manager and asked him to come and close as I needed to get to an ER.  No one was there so I didn’t think it was an issue.  He freaked out and said if I left he would fire me.  I told him no one was there, and I could close an hour early, but I needed to go.  He again repeated if I left I would be fired.  I hung up and left.  After a long night in the ER I was sent to an OBGYN, and scheduled for laproscopic procedure.  I had severe endometriosis, that travels outside of the pelvic cavity and PCOS.  My ovaries were 3 times the size they should be.  They were able to laser off the endometriosis and I started treatment for the PCOS but I was told I would have minimal chance of pregnancy in the future.  It is unknown if there is a link with the endometriosis and my genetic condition but It would make sense to me… I am the only one in my family thus far that has been diagnosed with these.  Of course at the time I was devastated and since having a hysterectomy at the age of 26 I still can get emotional about the fact that I can no longer have children, but I am very lucky to have my daughter and wouldn’t trade having her for the world!  I thought this would be the worst of things…  I had no idea the road I had ahead.  I was so naive then and weak too.  Being sick does something to you.  It starts to make you immune to bad news, to pain, to the world.  The little things don’t matter any more.  You don’t waste your time with people that don’t really give a shit and you invest your time in the right people.  It changes your life.  For the better and for the worse at the same time.  It’s a rude awakening.  And a fast one.  More to come on how I got to where I am.  I wish I could say it stopped here, but this was just a walk in the park!

-Just a Regular Sick Girl