A Rough Few Days

I wish I was writing a fun story this week, but unfortunately that is not the case.

All this started on Friday when I woke up with a headache. It was a decent one, but I had no other symptoms so I went and hung out with my friend Rhodessa, and we had a really fun time! It wasn’t until later that night that my headache got significantly worse, so I had to leave her place so I could go home and hopefully sleep it off.

Now I’m used to waking up in the middle of the night, but Friday night felt different. I was struggling more than usual to fall back to sleep, and my headache was still really bad. I really only got a few hours of sleep that night before having to get up Saturday morning to go do some stuff. I was still battling the headache, I felt nauseous, and overall just felt crappy. However, towards midday I felt like I was improving, so I went to go hangout with my boyfriend.

We had gone to a park for a couple of hours so he could play basketball and I could enjoy the nice weather. And I felt fine for most of that time. Then about the last twenty minutes of being there I started shivering a little bit, but I assumed this was due to it getting into the evening and from being in the shade.

Then things started to go downhill very quickly.

By the time we got back to Tyler’s house (which was less than a 5 minute drive) I was shaking so much I felt like I couldn’t control my body. He did his best to warm me up, but no matter what he did I just wasn’t improving. I originally was just going to text my mom, but due to my shaking being so bad I opted to call her, but even that was a struggle.

While my mom called my doctor, I took my temperature: 100.5. This was immediately alarming as fevers are something to look out for when on new medications. I told my mom this and we planned on her meeting Tyler and I at the closest walk in clinic. We got there around 7:20, but didn’t get called back to a room until about 7:50. At this point my shaking had calmed down, but I felt super nauseous and my headache was really bad. The nurse took my vitals, then we waited for the doctor to come in. The clinic was supposed to close at 8:00, and the doctor didn’t even come in until 8:10, and we could tell that she was not happy to be running late. She kept on telling me to drink the water faster, despite me being nauseous. She literally stood over my should telling me over and over to guzzle so that they could get a urine sample. My mom finally stepped in and asked if they were even able to do blood work, as my stomach doctor wanted tests run on both my urine and blood. When the clinic doctor said no, we got up and left to get to the ER.

We got there around 8:30-9:00 range, and for being a Saturday night it was shockingly quiet. They were able to get me set up in a bed fairly quickly (after having me pee in a cup). They hooked me up to an IV and started pumping saline in me, along with some Benadryl and anti-nausea meds. Those all kicked in fairly quickly, but the saline caused me to shiver horribly. I had 8 warmed up blankets on me, yet I couldn’t stop shaking. Thankfully I was able to sleep for a little bit, which kept me distracted from how cold I was. They then took some blood from me so they could run some tests. After a couple hours they got the results of the urine sample: inconclusive. Now typically with results like this they wouldn’t put you on an antibiotic until they knew for sure that there was a bladder infection, but since I’m on immunosuppressants they felt it would be smart to start me on some just to play it safe. I was finally discharged around 11:00 that night.

I slept terrible that night. It was probably one of the worst night sleeps I’ve ever had.

When I got up on Sunday I felt exhausted due to lack of sleep, but I thought I was feeling some improvement. Everything actually felt somewhat normal.

Then everything got bad around 4:00.

I cried a lot that night. My optimism I had been trying to hold on to for so long finally fell apart. I cried to my mom not understanding what I did to deserve this. I was feeling worse that I ever had with just the Crohn’s symptoms. My mom comforted me and assured me that I was allowed to be mad and upset. While I shouldn’t let it consume me, I also shouldn’t pretend that what I’m going through doesn’t suck.

With how much I cried I of course amplified how crappy I was feeling, but that cry session was super necessary.

This went on to be the routine, I’d feel fine during the day, around late afternoon would start feeling crappy, cry because I felt so crappy, then barely get any sleep.

Tuesday morning my stomach doctor called and said he wanted to have me evaluated for meningitis. Hearing this immediately broke me. I could not stop sobbing. It just felt like one thing after another.

It felt like I had become life’s punching bag.

My mom and I went back to the ER and my dad met us there. Shockingly, it was busier on a Tuesday morning than it was on a Saturday night.

The nurse who checked me in was immediately skeptical that I had meningitis, which was a relief for me, as I did not want any more needles being poked in me. We then had to wait a couple hours to actually get me into a bed.

Once the Physicians Assistant came in, she immediately started asking me questions and had me touch my chin to my chest. Thankfully I passed with flying colors, so they did not feel the need to do a spinal tap on me. I almost cried tears of joy when she said that. However, we also learned that I did not have a bladder infection. And while that was nice to hear, we were back in square one in terms of figuring out what was wrong with me.

We are now under the assumption that my body isn’t reacting well to the medications, so my stomach doctor has decided to take me off the immunosuppressant and just have me take the steroid. If it is the immunosuppressant causing me to feel this way, then I won’t feel any different for about a week. But I’m hopeful and excited to start feeling better, and to find a treatment that works better for me.

So, make sure you listen to your body. If something feels off, then there probably is something off. Don’t let it get as far as I did.

Also, it’s okay to want to be selfish and feel mad about your situation. It would be crazy if you were always trying to be optimistic.

I’m still working on that last one, but hopefully I’ll learn to accept my feelings as they are.