1- Symptoms start
2- You try over the counter medications
3- You bring it up to your Doctor
4- Your friends and family say "oh, everyone has that from time to time, it will go away"
5- You bring it up again to your Doctor, they do not remember you
mentioning it before and there is nothing in their notes. They recommend
the same over the counter meds you have been taking.
6- Your first trip to the ER...they make you wait hours then send you home after a blood test saying it is probably a virus.
7- You follow up with your Doctor, who orders the same blood test and gives you antibiotics "just in case".
8- You start searching for your symptoms online, family and friends
start to accuse you of obsessing and tell you that if you stop thinking
about it, it will go away.
9- The Doctor tells you the blood tests look normal and to come back in six weeks.
10- Before the six weeks is up you are back in the ER...the same blood
test is done...they give you a few meds to calm your symptoms and send
you home.
11- You go back to your Doctor who refers you to a specialist...the earliest they will see a new patient is 4 months away.
12- You end up in the ER 3 times before you see the specialist. They
whisper that you are a drug seeker and ask about your stress levels.
13- Your family and friends are getting "sick" of you always backing
out of plans and going to the ER so much. Some start avoiding you
because they believe you are just seeking attention.
14- You see the
specialist who orders a few more tests to check for the most common
causes of your symptoms. They come back normal.
15- You start to wonder if you are just crazy and it is all in your head.
16- More trips to the ER with them starting to brush you off in a more blunt manner.
17- The specialist starts to test for more obscure causes of your symptoms.
18- A test comes back positive... You Have A Name For It!
19- You get home and start researching your condition online and
discover there is no cure, no good treatments and a lot of conflicting
information.
20- You tell family and friends that you found out what it is...and there is no cure.
21- They have never heard of it before (and because of that, cannot believe it can be all that bad)
22- Your primary Doctor knows very little about it and the specialist does not treat it so you search for one that does.
23- You find others with the same condition and create strong bonds, like Soldiers in the field fighting the same enemy.
24- Your family and friends still think it is not "as bad as you say it
is" and still think that attention seeking plays a huge part. They
"prove" this when you "ignore" their advice for how to live and handle
your condition. To them, it proves that you do not want to get better
because if you did you would try their ideas.
25- You try to get
family and friends to help you raise awareness of your condition...but
they don't. They are 'over it' and, besides, if it was a real problem
then it would already be better known. This leaves only those suffering
to work for awareness.
26- All this time you are struggling to find
the right specialist to help you manage symptoms, battling with ER
Doctors who automatically assume you are seeking drugs and simply trying
to make it through another day.
Sometimes a diagnosis comes swiftly...sometimes it can take months, years or decades.
In the end, though, you are often left with a sense of guilt...as if having a chronic illness was a choice you made.
Those without chronic illness who read this might say it is "just
another plea for attention" but the absolute truth is that it is stark
reality.
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