I've always felt like i was invisible, and i'm not saying that as a bad thing. I enjoy not being the center of attention, i like to blend in. So, I've always thought of my invisibility as a super power. And it's been a great super power, kid's i went to school with since preschool couldn't even get my name right in high school, that's how great my super power was. Until the day my super power felt not so super anymore...
But to get to that, we have to go back to 7 weeks ago.
I had been completely healthy until one day i just wasn't. It hit me out of nowhere, my ear was in intense pain. The next day i woke up to a lump behind my ear. The following Monday i went into quick care because the pain was unbearable.
They prescribed me some antibiotics, because they believed an infection was about to start. That week i was still in a crazy amount of pain, the antibiotics were not working, the lump was still there, other symptoms started showing up too. I went back the following week and they didn't know what to do.
They referred me to an ENT (Ears, Nose, and Throat doctor). I made the appointment, went and saw him, he was of no help. He thought it was a jaw problem.
I made an appointment for a GP (general practitioner). He thought it was Mono so he made me get some blood work done.
I waited and waited to hear back from them, days passed with no word. So i finally called them, apparently they had my phone number wrong. But it turned out the blood test was negative for Mono. And they actually asked me if i wanted to continue with more testing or if i was ok to give up?
This was around week 4-5 of being in pain, i was still in pain, nothing was working. Here's a list of all the symptoms i was having:
- lump behind ear
- ear pain
- fevers
- chills
- chest pain
- left side pain
- headaches
- loss of appetite
- fatigue
So we continued, they made an appointment for me to get an ultrasound done on my neck.
On a Monday morning i had my ultrasound done. I was told i should hear back sometime Monday afternoon. But nothing. No call back.
Tuesday comes and goes, no call back. So i called them and was told "well it can take up to 48 hours to hear back, so keep waiting."
Wednesday comes and goes, nothing.
Thursday, my husband was fed up at this point and decided to call them. Yes they had my results, they had had them since Monday. They just forgot to call me. 6 weeks of me being in pain.. 6 weeks of having no idea what is wrong with me... and they just forgot to call me... This is the point where i started to feel like my super power wasn't so super anymore. It now started to feel more like a curse.
The ultrasound came back not conclusive, so more tests were in order. A CT scan was our next step.
Have you ever had a CT scan done before? I don't recommend having one done, if you can avoid it. Especially if they are doing it with contrast. They hook you up with an IV, shoot iodine into your blood stream, which immediately makes you feel like you have peed your pants. But for me, it also made me feel dizzy and sick to my stomach. Probably didn't help that i wasn't allowed to eat anything for 6 hours before the test. I was on the verge of passing out.
However, the next morning i received a phone call from my doctor. We finally have a diagnosis. It's my thyroid. More specifically my thyroid is swollen. 7 weeks later, 49 days of being in non-stop pain, 70,560 minutes of not knowing what the future will be like. And i finally have an answer.
Well, a partial answer. They asked me to go back in to get more blood work done and i have an appointment on Monday to see my doctor again to go over everything. But finally after 7 weeks of pain, i am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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