Questions.

The next morning I woke up feeling worse. I half wondered if actually going to the doctor was just bad luck, since I wasn’t getting any better. I reached down and touched my abdomen. I could feel a hard mass and knew it was my spleen. A cold chill went through me, as I knew this was grossly abnormal. Concern began to set in. With it also came a heightened awareness of my body. Before this time I had been so carefree regarding my body.  I had so unappreciated my health. I hadn’t even noticed. I was rarely ill. My stomach never bothered me. I had never broken a bone, never experienced severe anxiety or depression, never dealt with severe physical pain of any kind. And the strange part was I didn’t even notice.

I could eat whatever I wanted. I wouldn’t gain a pound. My college roommates despised me for this. We would sit around and talk, eating oreos and peanut butter, and they would laugh and point out my good fortune. I met girls in college who were so careful about what they ate. I met girls who were so careful they didn’t eat. All the while, I didn’t notice that I continued in good health with a healthy metabolism.

That afternoon I did notice. I noticed the fatigue that had been running through my body for the past month and a half significantly worsen. Before this point, when others described themselves as ‘tired’ or ‘fatigued’, it almost sounded like something that could be conquered by sheer will. I would think to myself, “If that was me, I would just ‘get over it’.” I saw others who dealt with fatigue as weak and frail. Now I was faced with the bitter reality that this fatigue thing can be completely debilitating and rage through ones whole body, making even simple activities such as walking from one room to the next a daunting task.  

The next morning I rolled over in bed and was woken up to sharp pain in my elbow and both hands. I clenched my fists to see if my pain would subside with movement. It didn’t. I was alarmed that this pain had literally woken me out of my sleep.

A few days later I broke out into a fever. It was about 4 pm, and I was so miserable. Pain in my hands and elbows, tired and now feverish.  This was unlike any flu, virus or cold I had ever known. Something in me told me it was serious. Something in me knew something was very wrong.

I went back to Dr. Thompson a few weeks later. It seemed like six months since I had last seen her, although it had barely been a month. She was on vacation, so I saw another physician. He introduced himself to me, but I didn’t hear his name.  I didn’t hear much of anything he said that day. I remember my frustration looking into the balding doctor’s eyes. He mostly looked down at his clipboard and asked a lot of questions. These were the same questions Dr. Thompson had asked me a month ago. I told him my symptoms. I told him of my positive mono titer. I told him about my good health prior to this point. H e seemed interested in my travel experiences, particularly to Kenya. He seemed interested in my dealings with patients in Kenya. He didn’t say much other than he wanted me to see an ‘infectious disease doctor’. “What the heck was that? Why would I need to see one? Why did he care if I went to Kenya?”.  My mom and I were hurried out of the office and told we would get a call regarding an appointment with an infectious disease doctor.

I recalled my experiences in Kenya. I went over them in my mind. I worked with HIV/AIDs patients. Did he think I had contracted HIV? I didn’t think I had exposed myself. There were no needle punctures. There was no blood or body fluid exposures that I could recall. But I helped out in surgery. I volunteered at the HIV/AIDs OBGYN clinic. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what was happening anymore. Things seemed to have spun so far out of control. This was not part of the plan.

For the first time in my life, at 21 years of age, I began to secretly wonder if I was going to die.