It's been over a month since my episodes started. Beginning in mid-March, I started feeling dizzy and lightheaded. After standing or moving abruptly, I would have syncope episodes, fainting without much warning. Originally it was 2-3 times a week. Now, it's 4-5 times a day. Every time I stand, every time I move, I'm afraid of fainting. Every time I stand to write something on the board in class, I worry about passing out in front of the class. Every step on a staircase is nerve-wrecking.
After seeing 3 cardiologists, I have been told that I have vasovagal syndrome, something that many young women experience for stages in their life. I was put on a blood pressure medicine that was suppose to decrease the quantity of episodes I have and lessen the lightheadedness I experience throughout the day. It has done nothing of the sort. While on the medication I have developed vertigo, nausea, blurred vision, and my episodes have increased drastically.
When I tell my doctors that I have Lyme and I'm worried that my syncope could be related to that, I get brushed off as if I tried to claim that the cause is my red hair. When I tell them that the medicine is making my episodes worse, I am told that all medications need adjustments to work to their full potential. When I tell them I am experiencing new symptoms, I am told to stop googling Lyme Disease because "you can find anything on the internet, not all of it is true."
When your symptoms are internal and heard to explain to physicians, your credibility as a patient is very low. When you're a 20 year old college student, memory loss is not taken seriously because there is a possibility of alcohol abuse based solely on your demographic. When you can't explain how you feel other than "off," you don't gain much confidence. How do you explain to someone that you can't stand without feeling dizzy and confused? How do you prove that your vision is blurred? How do you explain the brain fog you experience throughout the day?
After every frustrating appointment with doubtful physicians and every inconclusive test result, I remind myself to trust myself. "Don't let them call you crazy," I tell myself.
Sometimes I feel like I was chosen from a lottery. "God chooses his strongest soldiers for the toughest fights." Someone said that, or something like it. I've never felt like I was particularly strong. In fact, when you can't confidently walk to a bathroom alone or go upstairs without gripping a railing in fear of fainting, you begin to feel like the weakest person in the world.
Today one of my professors praised me for my resilience. Maybe that's how I'm strong. Maybe, if I keep reminding myself that I'm not crazy, I can be that strong soldier. I haven't gone to med school. I know very little about the heart. I barely know that a Lyme pathogen even looks like. But I know what I'm feeling. So I just have to keep reminding myself, "Don't let them call you crazy. They aren't feeling this."
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