2014 – Page 2 – The only certainty is bad grammar

I finally tried acupuncture

Published: August 14, 2014 / Updated: August 14, 2014 Crystal Pain

I promise you I went into that acupuncture appointment with an open mind.

I mean, I really wanted to like the guy. And I really wanted the ancient Chinese remedy to actually be a viable form of treatment for me.

I decided to arrange the appointment after getting a text from my best friend suggesting I try it. She was about the 27th person to recommend it, so I took it as a sign and Googled “acupuncture” + “the name of the closest city.”

I called the first place that came up.

They had the word “medical” in their name, so I figured that must be sort of legit. I gave the receptionist my full name, address, and insurance information and set up a morning appointment in two days.

My mom says it’s a bad sign when they can get you in that fast. But I was in so much pain that I convinced myself it was because they just cared so darn much.

When the fateful morning arrived, my mom drove me to the appointment.

They started with the same type of stuff every doctor starts with: 30 minutes worth of paperwork and asking if my grandpa’s cousin’s dog ever had glaucoma or heart disease, which was followed by a nurse and vitals.

Finally, after being there for about an hour, the doctor came in. He was friendly enough, and as I went through the crazy winding story of how I ended up in his office after waking up with random rib pain last year — with no known cause — I really did hope he’d be able to magically fix me.

He listened to all the details, proclaimed that he “gets lucky a lot,” and asked me do a urine test right then and there. About three minutes after I submitted the sample, he came back in and said it showed that I had “leaky gut.”

That’s about when the crazy started. He launched into a speech on how I needed to go on a very strict diet for the next three months, and take piles of supplements, which I could, of course, conveniently buy from him. That, combined with acupuncture, would probably fix me.

Except the diet wasn’t gluten-free or vegetarian or fat-free. It was literally:

No potato
No dairy
No beef
No pork
No coffee
No sugar
No wheat
And nothing in a bottle, box, can or jar.

So basically chicken, broccoli, and three cups of fruit a day.

The doctor assured me that this was going to help me lose some of the weight I’d gained from the medications. Which makes sense, because anytime you give up four major food groups, you’re bound to lose some weight.

He had a handout on the diet and everything, which made me think it was the same diet plan he gave to all of his new patients, regardless of their condition.

Oh, and of course, he said I needed to start taking myself off all the prescriptions I was currently on, a little at a time, every two days. Except, you know, it took me more than a year to find the right drug regimen, and without them I’m in complete agony, no matter how many supplements I take.

Then, before I even knew what was happening, he started an acupuncture session on me.

I don’t know how that crazy rumor started about how you’re not able to actually feel the acupuncture needles because they’re so small, but it’s a bunch of crap. Not only could I feel every single needle, I also was bleeding when they took them out.

After poking me with at least 15 needles all over my body, ranging from my calves to my forehead, he said I had to do deep breathing for 20 minutes and then a nurse would be by to take the needles out.

As I lay there, I tried to stay calm and focus on breathing in and out, but 20 minutes is a long time. I spent most of it dreaming about the beef and cheddar sandwiches my mom and I were going to get after the appointment at the nearby Arby’s. Man, I love their fries. So yeah, the diet part probably wasn’t for me.

After the needles were taken out, the nurse did a two-minute laser treatment on my right side. The laser was never explained to me and it didn’t do anything for me, but it didn’t hurt, so whatever.

All in all, after everything, I didn’t feel one ounce better than I had before I walked in the door. Even so, I still was planning to come back for another appointment. I mean, I could be open to multiple acupuncture sessions if that’s what it took.

But as I sat down to schedule my next visit, the nurse tried to sell me all the supplements I supposedly needed to get better. Although they didn’t have everything the doctor had recommended to me in stock, what they did have came to $200.

When I tried to tell the woman that I don’t just have $200 extra dollars, she seemed annoyed that I wasn’t taking my health seriously. And when I asked if there was just one important supplement I could buy, she replied, “They’re all really important and they all work together.”

That’s when I knew I wouldn’t be back.

I paid my $35 for the urine test that I didn’t need, and another $30 for the co-pay I calculated in my head — just to be sure I didn’t get any follow-up bills from the place. Then, I made a follow-up appointment that I had no intention of keeping.

I really do wish getting better was as simple as eating less dairy, taking $200 worth of supplements, and having 15 needles stuck throughout my body a few times a week. But after enduring this excruciating pain for as long as I have, I know better than to buy the snake oil.

Still Sick, Even After the Mayo Clinic

Published: July 20, 2014 / Updated: July 20, 2014 Crystal Pain

Lately, when I think about killing myself, I try to remember Brazil.

I recently went on a week-long trip to the beautiful sea-side country, and although it was technically for work, I was able to experience plenty of amazing moments — moments I try to remember when I think about ending my life.

I try to remind myself that it was such an unexpected trip that came up out of the blue, and it was so incredible and magnificent, and if I had killed myself a few months ago like I wanted to, back when the pain was particularly bad, then I would have missed out on the whole thing. I would have never made it to Brazil.

From there, I try to remember that the rest of my life is still filled with so many incredible possibilities and ending it now would be a mistake.

These days, though, I’ve had to remind myself about Brazil more often than I’d like.

I just got back from a much anticipated visit to the (in)famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

It’s supposed to be THE place to go when you have things like excruciating random rib pain that you wake up with one day for no apparent reason. It’s supposed to be the hospital that puts all other hospitals to shame. The one that can diagnose the undiagnosable and cure the incurable. The very mecca of the chronically sick.

Except for me. Aside from the pretty buildings and the fancy tour guide facts on the shuttle bus ride between the hotel and the clinic, it ended up being pretty much just like any other doctor’s visit.

Which is exactly what I was afraid of.

I mean, sure, the doctor was nice enough. A strong Italian woman, she had the kind of fierce personality I often wish I could muster. With her relatively thick accent, she went over my medical history with a strikingly straightforward approach, saying things like, “Oh yes, you are on the Amitriptyline. It’s makes you fat.”

Oddly, that comment was among her more comforting words. I mean, at least she didn’t think it was because I was just a lazy slob, like everyone else did.

But, as we started to talk about the nitty gritty, I quickly realized that she wasn’t going to dig very deep into my pain. And in fact, she was just going to do what all the other doctors before her had done.

She concluded that she thought the pain was probably intercostal neuralgia, even though I’ve already had a test to show that it’s probably not intercostal neuralgia.

Then, she said the same thing all the doctors say, “We don’t know what caused it. We’ll probably never know what caused it. And we don’t know exactly how to cure it, but if we throw a bunch of different treatments at it, maybe something will work.”

After that, she sent me off for two days of peripheral nerve tests that had almost nothing to do with my pain — one of which literally electrocuted me for three minutes straight. Another burned the top of my left foot to test my pain tolerance. All of them came back normal.

In the end, her best piece of medical advice seemed to be to take off work and attend a three-week, outpatient pain clinic — which just made me feel like she had run out of ideas and was shipping me off to the place people go when they’ll never be cured. Also, who the heck can just take three weeks off work?

On Thursday evening, after all the tests and all the appointments were done, I reflected on the experience in the hotel hot tub, and I tried desperately to wrap my head around what was happening.

I had tried to mentally prepare for this outcome, to remind myself that nothing might come from this visit. But I also had still allowed myself to hope for more. And honestly, with so many people out there on social media rooting for me and writing messages on my Facebook wall about how they were praying I would be cured at Mayo, I somehow also felt like I was letting the whole world down.

For a half a second, I honestly thought about pretending that I had actually been cured at Mayo.

I could come back and tell everyone the news they so desperately wanted to hear. I could let my boss believe my health was no longer affecting my work, and I could date guys without worrying about whether or not they were secretly turned off by my pile of orange prescription bottles.

But then I remembered how sick I really am, and I realized that my plan wouldn’t work. I mean, how many days could I last at work without having to tell my boss I needed to sign off early and lay down? I can only fake so many episodes of the flu.

Which really only leaves me one option — I somehow have to deal with the fact that I’m just going to continue to be sick, at least for now.

But that’s where the suicidal thoughts start to creep back in. Because, if I’m being honest, looking at a life filled with unendurable pain seems too overwhelming to handle. And coming to grips with the fact that even THE Mayo Clinic couldn’t help me, makes me want to just give up on doctors and prescriptions and life in general.

But I try to keep reminding myself about Brazil. And about the palm trees, and the sound of the ocean waves, and the way the people I met there have left such a strong impression on my heart.

And I keep going. At least for now.

Countdown to the Mayo Clinic

July 20, 2014 Crystal Pain

So I’m going to the Mayo Clinic in a little less than two weeks.

In 13 days I’ll be on my way to what many people in America consider to be the best hospital in the country.

It has taken me over a year to get in there. Apparently, when my original primary care doctor decided back in May, 2013 that he could no longer help me, I wasn’t quite in bad enough shape for the Mayo Clinic to prioritize my case.

I guess excruciating pain that literally makes you want to kill yourself isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you.

Every healthy person I tell about my upcoming appointment gets super excited. I can see it in their eyes that they believe I’m going to go there and come home five days later cured. It is the freaking MA-YO Clinic after all.

Those who’ve had their bodies betray them though, have a less optimistic view. The sick know better. They tell me how the Mayo Clinic failed them. Or how they went there and came home worse off than when they left. They tell me story after story about how the doctors there are just like all the other doctors who have let me down.

And so, I am only cautiously optimistic about the whole thing. Once in awhile, the little spark of hope I have left in my soul will flicker, and I’ll remember for a few seconds what it was like to be healthy. I’ll wish with all my heart that maybe, just maybe, the Mayo Clinic will live up to its reputation and cure me.

Maybe a doctor will see my case in a new light or they’ll have a special test I’ve never heard of that will diagnosis me on the spot. Or they’ll give me a new experimental treatment and it will actually work.

And I’ll pretend that I could come home and go right back to living my life — like I did before I woke up one day in February, 2013 with sudden, horrible pain in my right ribs that never went away. That maybe, just maybe, I could even wear a push-up bra again one day.

But those moments only last a few seconds. I spend way more time trying to prepare myself for the worst.

I keep telling my family that the doctors will probably spend an hour with me and proclaim they have no idea what’s wrong and send me on my way — the same as every other supposedly amazing specialist I’ve ever seen. And then we’ll just have to spend the rest of our week in Minnesota window shopping at the Mall of America.

Don’t worry though, I won’t be buying any big-ticket items. The trip is the big-ticket item. With the cost of gas, hotel rates and my family’s need to eat on a daily basis, this doctor’s visit isn’t going to be cheap. And it’s made all the more difficult to deal with seeing as how, like most sick people, I’m drowning in thousands of dollars in medical bills and expensive monthly prescription co-pays.

The problem is, as much as this illness has devastated me, without a diagnosis, it’s not like I can have a fundraiser. I’m not the 30-year-old young professional with something recognizable like cancer. No, I’m the girl who wakes up everyday feeling like she’s just been beaten up by a baseball bat and a truck. And nobody wants to donate to that girl.

So, I ended up dipping into my retirement savings to front the cost. Just a loan, but still. It’s one of those things every financial expert everywhere warns you against. Had they been in my situation, I think they would have done the same thing though.

I just hope it’s worth it.