MISDIAGNOSED: Book One

Chapter Seven - Patience For Now

This was a month after all of that madness had occurred and it was still a process to deal with. Everything was not fixed immediately after being at the hospital. There were still unanswered questions but we could only go to the hospital for more tests in January because of the medical aid funds being empty. It had effects on my mental health that I could not begin to explain. The doctors had simply said that I should see what happens until we were able to go back. It was an awful but unsurprising thing to have heard especially after what the hospitals or doctors had put me through these last few years. I kept having nightmares flashing back to everything that had happened a month before. The pain in my arm from the needle going into tissue, the agonising pain I felt when the spasms spiralled out of control as the nurses did not want to help me, the feeling of hopelessness when I eventually laid there numb inside. It replayed in my head constantly. The thought of how I had mentally given up at that point was terrifying. It was all I could do at that moment because there was nothing else I could do. Thinking back to it, I will never fully understand how I was able to go through it at all. Which makes the fact that I eventually mentally numbed myself to the pain in order to detach myself from something out of my control, something extraordinary. I kept having nightmares about the feeling of suffering in that state without receiving help. The air kept getting colder and colder, my body felt weaker, and my heart felt as if it was going to burst out of my chest. I will forever be grateful for my mother because she did not allow the nurses to ignore me. She stood in that hallway and asked every single person until one of them came to help because they would say they are coming to help, then never do. It was not the first time that happened, as you now know. What the nightmares were about as a whole was the fact that I did not believe that it was over. After all of the chaos that I had experienced, it did not feel like I was able to be happy and say that the battle was over. I kept thinking about all the medication the doctors had been giving me and how I had been getting worse with all of that. So I decided to switch things up for myself. Only taking an iron tablet every second day at least, then that would not cause me to have too much in my blood or make me ill again. However, the doctor mentioned that whenever I take an iron tablet, that I take a laxative after that as well. This was to avoid constipation and whatnot. Would you be surprised if I told you that it made things more difficult? Shocking, am I right? I started taking a laxative after I took my morning vitamins and my iron supplements, but something was wrong. Every time I took them, I started to feel extremely nauseous and have a lot of discomfort. This went on for a week and I was throwing up everyday because of it. Until we had it looked at by a different doctor and what was said was that the laxative and the iron supplements have conflict with one another in your gastrointestinal tract. The iron supplement is trying to bring in a lot of nutrition which could block the bowel whilst the laxative is trying to break down the bowel, therefore conflicting with one another and that causes the nausea along with discomfort, vomiting, etc. Something that my previous doctor who gave this original advice neglected to mention. Wonderful right? This was all found around the end of the year because we could not take it anymore. But since we are talking about the end of the year 2022. Let me tell you about how it not only ended but started 2023 with a BANG. I had been cooking some rice the evening of December 31st. I had made a chilli oil that day with sixteen chillies in it. Keep in mind, I didnt search online for a recipe, and I just went on my own adventure. I thought that if I only used a tablespoon then it would amount to perhaps one or two chillies. Boy, was I about to be taught a lesson. I made a huge pot of savoury rice with two tablespoons of the chilli oil I had made because it should only be maybe a few chillies, right? Wrong. Oh, was I so wrong. That is when the discomfort really started to kick my ass. I started feeling pain EVERYWHERE. My sides were aching, my back was aching, my stomach and abdominal section was aching, my heart was racing, my chest was burning, and honestly, what was not paining at this point? I remember feeling nauseous like never before. My throat started burning as the acid in my stomach started wrapping things up. The food was so strong and acidic that my stomach refused to digest it AT ALL. It was not taking that heinous job and had no issue delivering the message loud and clear. It was something that I had not anticipated at all because I had successfully been to the bathroom after eating in the idea that my food had actually digested. So, the pain I was experiencing completely confused me. I bet you were spending your New Years Eve watching a countdown, having a party, or perhaps sleeping as I was planning to be. Except, I spent midnight of 2023 hurling my guts as if it was my job. It might as well have been with the amount of times I have been sick over the years. Not a great way to start the year and certainly not giving 2023 a great look. It was horrible because I had to go to a family event that same day in a matter of hours. Little did many of them know, I had almost jumped in my toilet and flushed myself down with the repercussions of my little chilli experiment. This was a wakeup call into taking a step back with spicy food as it clearly was not something my stomach was capable to processing. You are probably thinking This is such a gross story. Why did you write this? and you are not wrong in that thought. However, Im writing this to inspire others who are just like me in order to keep fighting. To let them know that they are not crazy, as I used to feel a long time ago. People used to think I was crazy and talking nonsense, or that I was faking my pain in order to get attention or sympathy. As you can imagine, after years of doctors not finding the main cause, you start to believe the criticism. But I am writing this today to prove that one way or another, if you keep going, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I recently met three people who are going through what I am going through and it was a good thing for me because this pain can make you feel all alone in the world. Since not everyone is going through it, those who are not will always look at you as if you are this freak of a thing because they dont believe that there is anything wrong with you as they have not experienced it themselves. But since all we could do until our medical aid funds were back was wait. Patience for now