Message received

My body isn't happy with me right now because I guess I'm not listening to it.  I'm not talking about weight related stuff but stress.

Back in 1998, when we were starting our first big weight loss journey, I lost 70 lbs in a relatively short amount of time.  I began to notice I was getting full very quick and then sometimes I would get nauseous.  It escalated and I would get this close to vomiting.  Now, I'd rather bargain with God for 10 hours than yak so I knew something was wrong.  I was checked for gallstones and had none.  I had a Hepatobiliary scan (where they shoot dye in to see if your gall bladder is emptying) and it came back on the low side of normal.  I was sent to an ENT who told me casually that in addition to a Eustachian tube disorder that I could have the beginnings of MS.  (I didn't.)  I had an endoscopy done to check for stomach cancer and the twilight meds didn't work so I was awake for the whole thing.  I had to ask three times if I had stomach cancer because they thought I was under anesthesia and ranting.  When I finally yelled "I'M FULLY AWAKE AND KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING WILL SOMEONE TELL ME IF I HAVE CANCER!?!?!"  They casually said no and had me walk to recovery.  Then I was sent to a neurologist to check for brain tumors and had an MRI done.  The result?  Nothing.  Oh, well there was the note from the neurologist to my general doc saying nothing was wrong with me and when I was told nothing was wrong, I didn't accept it and he labeled me "hysterical" and said it was all in my head.  I was then referred to a GI doctor who ran the Hepatobiliary scan again. Despite having it done before and being on the low end of normal, four months had passed since my first one and it caught my gall bladder shutting down.  I was referred to a surgeon and it was taken out a few weeks later.  A month later, I was still getting nausea and whenever I found myself in stressful situations, I'd be seconds from throwing up.

When I went back to my GI doctor asking what the hell was going on, he said he had many cases like mine and that it was called "functional nausea and vomiting."  It's basically how my body manifests stress and the body can't differentiate from good stress and bad stress.  So I could be worried about something or excited about something and my body reacts the same to a degree.  I was on very low dose pills to haze the part of my brain that would click this reaction on in my stomach.  It was fine but I'm not a pill person so after two years, I weaned myself off of them.  I also noticed my response to extreme stress would change.  Sometimes I could get dizzy.  Sometimes I got migraines.  Sometimes I went into full blown panic attacks when I couldn't breathe, felt like I was having a heart attack and would be down for the count.  I didn't have those issues before I began my medical mishap journey and after more than five months of being told "it's all in your head/there's nothing wrong with you", you start to question your sanity.  I could smack a few of those doctors for the way they made me feel.

No thanks to them, I found alternative ways to deal with these spells.  Breathing techniques worked wonders for me and learning to let go of my Virgo-esque perfectionism and stubbornness was essential.  Both are very hard for me to let go because it's just who I am and how I grew up.  I still love to present an experience for people who visit.  For example, when my mom and aunt came over last weekend, I had mulling spices on the stove so the smell of Fall would be in the air as they came in.  I hand squeezed lemons for lemonade.  I recreated a recipe from a restaurant we all loved back in the day.  I got my birthday cake in a flavor that was their favorite, not necessarily mine.  (But I'm never turning down chocolate cake but still, I'm a white on white girl)  I had rules that my grandmothers condition not be discussed or a branch of the family tree that are particularly frustrating because I wanted a laid back evening.  I got on the floor and ended up giving them foot massages even though the celebration was for me.  The Mr sometimes says I'm thoughtful to a fault and it's true.  It's even worse when it's not acknowledged.  I mean this was by both of them over the following days.  But there have been other times I've gone out of my way to make people feel loved and appreciated and didn't get a thank you or anything close in return from them ever.  Then it sends me into bits of self doubt, what's wrong with me, etc.  So you can see how my own brain works overtime and sends my body into fits.

The day before yesterday just as we were heading up to bed, my stomach started feeling weird.  By the time we got to the top of the stairs, I was salivating heavily which I recognized as a sign that I was going to hurl.  I told the Mr and asked for some Tums in case I ate something weird.  I sat in the bathroom and did some deep breathing and those old prayers started coursing through my head.  I tried to think of what I was thinking of when it hit and it was something stupid my mom said.  She said how I had her decorating style with my new makeover.  Thing is, my mom's house looks nothing like mine.  It's the equivalent of that Pinterest board you have that says something like "for my future house" where you pin a ton of stuff you know you'll never buy but your actual home looks nothing like it.  Well, I basically have all the stuff on her theoretical Pinterest board.  I didn't know why something so stupid bothered me but if I think about it, I suppose that in some way it felt like all of the time I spent putting into this remodel was brushed aside in one sentence of claiming I decorate like her when that isn't how she decorates.  Does that make ANY sense?  I didn't say it was Earth shattering or even intelligent.  But it goes back to that whole thing of feeling like this huge accomplishment was diminished even though that wasn't her intent.  I'm almost yakking on my keyboard just typing it.

That wasn't even the key thing that bothered me, it was just the stupid straw that broke my stupid stomach.  I've got two more weekends filled with entertaining, trying to set up something with someone else, having to turn other things down, thinking of all of the crap I'm behind on both here and at my shop and no planning accomplished for a road trip that is fast approaching.  I've got things swirling everywhere around me and my body is slapping me across the gut to get me to wake up to what needs to be done.  I need to make a to do list.  Something I can physically see and cross off as things are accomplished or this is going to be my fate every night and I forgot just how horrible this feels.

While I wish I could go the rest of my life without ever feeling this way again or wish I could unflip whatever switch was flipped during that period of complete medical ineptitude, there are times my body just reminds me that things need to get done.  It reminds me that while procrastinating is okay here and there, that if you procrastinate on too many things, they all tumble down on top of you.  So as much as I hate this, thank you body for smacking me around to what needs to be done.  Now, if you'll please vacate because the message has been received.

Were you ever misdiagnosed/had a bad medical experience?  

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