So I have been thinking about blogging and letting everyone know about my life with Anti-phosphate Lipid Antibody Syndrome for a long time now and I finally decided it would be the best way to share my story and stories with my friends and family.
I am going to start at the beginning and slowly tell my story and how I got my diagnosis and then I will just tell about doctors appointments and everyday living.
In August of 2009, I had a dentist appointment to get my cavity filled; that was the day that changed my life. After the appointment, I started to get sick, and sicker. I saw every sort of doctor there was and no one had an answer. Finally one doctor suggested that I was depressed and wanted to put me on antidepressants. I had no reason to be depressed; it was my senior year, I was running cross country, headed for Kansas State and loving life. I decided not to take antidepressants and just pretended everything was all right. Early in December I noticed that my hands were starting to get numb and my vision was becoming blurry. I tried to ignore it, but slowly the numbness began to be all day and it was getting worse, so bad that I would drop my pencil while writing. After lunch I would go sleep in my car for 2 or 3 hours before basketball practice and I couldn't figure out why I was so tired.
On one December day I knew something was really wrong, I had numb hands and arms all day and when I went into the locker room to get ready for practice, I noticed that I couldn't wink or when I smiled only one side of my face moved. I called my dad and asked him to come to practice and watch. At practice they would pass me the ball and only one side of my body would go to catch the ball. We were doing the zig zag dribbling drill and I was guarding a girl on my team and the moment she switched and made me run to the left I collapsed and ended up on the sidelines sitting with my dad. My dad took me to Urgent Care in Belgrade and they suggested that I see a neurologist.
We didn't have a neurologist in Bozeman, so they suggested a great doctor in Helena. I headed up there and she said that sometimes when girls gain weight, a vein in their skull is pressed against the brain and causes numbness and blurry vision. She suggested I get an MRI. The next day, I headed into Bozeman to get an MRI. I had never been sick in my life and never had an IV or MRI, so this was a rather scary process for me. After my MRI, I went back to school and participated in my last basketball practice ever.
The MRI center called while I was at practice and told me that they saw some unusual things and I needed to come back in the a.m. for another MRI; one of the most frustrating parts of being sick, is that they don't give you direct answers. After the MRI, we were headed back to TF and they called and said in the a.m. we needed to head to Billings first thing, and have a dye injected into my leg to look at my heart. The dye would allow the doctors to watch my blood flow to see if I had any clots. Little did I know that Billings called and told them I wouldn't make it there alive and suggested we just go straight to the ER in the a.m.
In the morning I woke up and felt worse than ever, my mom's van had a flat tire and I was laying in the homemade bed in the back. While my parents where changing the tire, I had my second major stroke....
To be continued.
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