How it Feels to Have a Chronic Illness. And How to Explain it to Normal People.

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 "How are you going these days Nikhil?" 

It'd been literally half a year since I'd seen this group of friends - my med student buddies - and I had to do the rounds. This question came up a lot. And almost always, it was about my health. 

"So yeah I'm actually good!" I'd always start, smiling and gesturing wildly so as not to worry anyone. "In fact, my cancer's at a point now where it can't come back!" And to this, I'd get an emphatic 'Congratulations!', a shout of yipee and a toast and the occasional pat on the back (*wince* - I have some healing wounds there that aren't getting better fast...). 

"But yeah otherwise, treatment for the graft versus host disease continues. And I mean though the skin is slowly getting better, the major thing left is the cramping, which can suck." The faces become more sallow as I say this. "But hey, they're getting better too!" I lied, and again they'd celebrate, albeit slightly less enthusiastically. 

Hey! What could I tell them? How could I explain to them the truth of how it affects every single aspect of my life. Even in this crowd of young, caring people, there was no easy way of really telling them what it really meant...

 

I don't think people really know how much this can affect me...
Me getting up for the 10th time or something some night. Mum filmed it 'cause they kept me from sleeping for so long, we thought we may have to show it to the doctors ASAP.

And after a while... explaining it over and over again takes too much effort. Hence this post.

I guess you could argue that it's hard to really talk about anything over the insane amounts of decibels that blast through a nightclub's speaker. I guess you could say that lambasting about the constant frustration and the looming anxiety of something you can't control for half an hour would break the social convention of small talk. But in truth, now that I think about, there really isn't an easy way to explain how it really impacts your mindset, a chronic condition. 

Because unlike what most think, that frustration, that anxiety, the physical effects of a chronic illness - that's only half the impact. Chronic diseases, mental illnesses, even things like stress affect our very mindset, they play a factor in every tiny decision we make and it was only after reading this amazing article/blog post that I feel I'm properly able to explain that now. 

It's only half the pain... but that pain can be significant.

It's called the spoon theory, and the concept is brilliant and encapsulates everything there is about having such an illness. 

Picture yourself having to walk around all day with 12, and only 12, spoons. Each little action you take - you get one confiscated. I know it's in-feasible to have someone follow you around all day, and I know that handing one in may be conceived to be another action that requires another spoon that ends up in an infinite loop leaving you with no spoons, and that there may be all kinds of other particulars that may make this nonfunctional... Hey, I said it was a great analogy. Not a perfect one. 

I digress. Now... where were we? 

Every single action.

Waking up and hopping out of bed? That'll be one spoon.

Finding the will to get up and brush your teeth. One more. 

Doing other... business... in the bathroom and then showering. Another one.

Putting on your clothes, eating breakfast and going out for the day's business. 2 more please. 

We've only just left the house, and we're down 5 or 6 spoons! 

You may think I'm exaggerating, but that's life for so many people. People with cystic fibrosis, people with heart failure or latent blood cancers, people with horrible cramps like me will find some, most, even all of those tasks tiring. Right now, I'm scared of even getting up from a seated/lying position after 5pm, in fear of my whole body having EVERY SINGLE muscle contract at once (from my legs to my abs, to even my neck), leaving me dazed and staggering, doubly terrifying if I'm trying to get up steps (I've fallen twice already, which may have caused soft tissue damage in my knee) - even gasping wildly for breath (getting up and staggering to the car was what took me in to hospital the night before I found out I had another tumour growing on my rib). 

 

Me a few weeks ago. Facebook usually isn't somewhere you post your down moments. The image of themselves as successful, happy people that people like to portray, combined with life highlights usually drowns out moments or cries out to nobody like these. I guess I'm lucky to have some friends who saw and cared to ask.

People going through severe depression find getting out of bed to be impossible. It's too painstakingly hard to face the day or the world for some, too lonely for others - it's unsurprising that it makes no sense to many - and leaving that first confine costs them significantly more than 1 spoon. 

Now imagine the feeling of having to give that spoon up. Each. And. Every. Task. You. Do. And imagine having to account for and plan out everything around not only your medications and appointments over the days/weeks/months to come, but also for how many "spoons" you have left. Yes... sometimes you can have a "feel" for things and plan accordingly... But remember, often your condition can be unpredictable... leaving you caught with even less. 

And imagine having to pass up on doing things that are good for your career, good for you, or the things you love because you simply don't have, or can't afford the energy to do so.

So, where were we? Ahh that's right... The rest of the day. 

So when you get through the day's work or study, with travel, dealing with setbacks, explaining things like this to people and - could you imagine - kids... you're left staggering around with 1 spoon.  If you're lucky. 

And if you're lucky enough to have the will, or else prop yourself up by speaking motivational nothings to yourself (or by taking heavy amounts of Beroccas or even stronger stuff) and manage to head out the door to "enjoy" yourself as I did that night, you'll pay for it by having a semi (if that) rewarding night and by being forced to watch on jealously as "normal" people enjoy things like dancing, drinking and eating (don't forget, the physical restrictions ALWAYS stay with us) and even walking without a worry. And if you wear yourself out too much - you'll pay by having a few less spoons to use the next day. That's if you haven't worn yourself out already before you've even had the choice to go and have fun.

Because yes - you DO pay if you go over the limit. Harshly.

And no... you don't get a break from it.

Ever.

For some... especially those who are poor (it's hard to get extra qualifications or backing for your business, or even a job in the first place with this on your record) this can become a cycle that just continues on and on.

This thing looms over you, and drains you, in all ways, forever. And I may complain about it - I, hell, anyone with any such draining condition (no matter how "petty" or "whiny" it may seem) have the right to do so no matter what - but there are so many people who have it worse. 

I have the benefit of having a year off from studies, so I can, when I'm well enough, accomplish other things despite this. I also have a family, all amazing people, who care for me and do everything - from fixing me meals and taking me to appointments, to dragging me to my bed (which actually happened after that party 2 nights ago as my muscles were drained from enjoying myself and dancing for a few minutes) when I need them to. I'm still young and can look forward to a potential future without this. So many people DON'T have that luxury. 

Imagine being blind and having to rely on that carer, or services that may, or may not exist, all the time. Imagine having inflammatory bowel disease or some form of incontinence that means you have to rush to the bathroom (which you always have to be aware of, not just because of the embarrassment this could cause, but actually be aware of if they're close) at any second of the day. Imagine being a carer for someone with that illness and having to not only watch on helplessly as your loved ones struggle to juggle their spoons, but have to take on their spoons yourself - as you work 2 or 3 jobs to cover the bills, or give up YOUR happiness to do so... as my brother often has to. 

Imagine having had this your whole life, and knowing that this may well take your life, as people with cystic fibrosis and other chronic, right-now-deemed-terminal illnesses do.

It's scary. I know. 

But as the lady who invented this spoon theory said in her original post... this can also be seen as "a blessing. I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don�t have room for wasted time, or wasted �spoons�. And if you're lucky enough to have a friend or family member or patient who does have such an illness... if they're with you... remember that they "chose to spend this time with YOU." 

I hope this gives you a glimpse of life as a chronic patient. 

I hope this allows you to forgive "misgrievances" anyone with an illness may have committed - whether it be them having to bail at the last moment on a meeting, skipping or else refusing to take medications because they honestly forgot or are sick of taking them, or them just simply pouring their heart out and letting people know what it feels... I've seen so many people cry things like "Bullshit!" and "Pussy!" when people "whine" about things like this.

Remember - these things take a huge emotional toll too (my experiences with it. And how I deal with that).  It's not easy hearing "you look good", or "you look better" when you feel like the complete opposite. It's not easy having to explain everything, often lying about your health just to make others happy too. The frustration of this thing never leaves you too...

And finally, I hope this let's you understand those people in your lives who do have extra issues always looming over them. And I hope this urges you to go and ask them if they're OK, and equips you to maybe help them. 

Because who knows. Someone you love, or someone you care or are caring for may need your help.

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Here we go again... Cancer For a Third Time... When will it learn IT CAN'T MESS WITH ME!?!?

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So... what's been going on you ask? 

What's with that chemo drug you were talking about on Facebook? I thought you said it wasn't for cancer... and now you posted this?

Well, let me explain. 

Recently I started a "chemotherapy" drug, but not for cancer. 

It's called rituximab  - and it's not only in brackets because it's technically, in my case, not a chemotherapy, as it's not "A chemical agent used in the treatment of cancers" (it was given for another condition I have - a side effect of my bone marrow transplant; chronic graft versus host disease. I'll explain it in detail in a later post) but because it's mechanism of action; the way it works is not in line with most chemotherapies.  

Sure, it can have some of the nastier side effects of chemo - nausea, low immunity, diarrhoea; plus a few others (the reaction many, well, most patients have to it on the first dose can kill if a close eye isn't kept on it), but many people tolerate it pretty well beyond that.  

Me included, so I thought after the first infusion. My reaction to it was mild - only a bit of cold/cough symptoms and a slight tightening of the chest. But over the next few days... the worst side effect came on. 

The cramping. 

Now I've had cramps for a while now; at least 1 and a half years. Ones that come on spontaneously that strike anywhere, anytime (though usually more severely at night), and fast, but they leave me in pain and anxiety for ages. They've were bad enough to affect my overall outlook on life and whether it was all worth it for a while (I talked about how I deal with that here - don't worry, I'm past that now) but since starting this medication... which is supposed to reduce them over time... they've gotten even worse. 

The two days after my first dose, I cramped LITERALLY all day. In the arms, legs, shoulders, abs; everywhere. After the second dose, a week and a half ago now, I didn't stop cramping the entire week. 

But there was another side effect of it that I also was starting to notice. Shortness of breath. And one night... that got even worse than the cramping. The day before what should have been my third dose of the drug, I got up and, within a few, cramp-filled steps, was gasping for breath. 

We were on high alert. Any odd signs, even one as tiny as a new cough, was cause for immediate concern and, if outside hospital hours, a trip to emergency, we were warned. It was 7pm... I'd just won a game of poker. So off to emergency we went. 

Just another day in the office for the masked bandit...

Haha played 2 big tournaments in this mask to protect me from infections. It also gave me an extraordinary poker face.

Once we were in there and seen we were given a range of possibilities of what it could be and what they were looking for. An infection of some kind was possible; but given my lack of a cough or fever or any other sign of it, unlikely. A pericardial effusion? Maybe because of this mildly abnormal ECG scan... A pulmonary embolism... a detached clot lodging itself in my lungs, though unlikely, had to be ruled out. Whatever it was, it was clear that we needed a scan more thorough than an X-Ray. So I was booked in for a CT. 

So there I lay, back in my familiar bone marrow transplant ward, only 2 rooms down from where I'd received my life saving bone marrow donation, awaiting the results, when this new doctor burst in and told me this news.

"Well... we got your CT back... Though it's clear of any infections or PEs, there was a lesion found on the forth rib. The radiologists have said it has the features of a chondrosarcoma." 

For a second, I sat there frozen, taking it all in. A few years of medical knowledge and intuition came into play... and the cogs in my brain started whirring... chondro - something to do with cartilage... the tense look on the residents and medical students' faces behind me meant something was up... sarcoma... a cancer... of the  connective tissue. 

Questions went racing through my mind, and before I knew it, firing off from my lips, as my confused parents looked to me and the registrar in charge. 

"How do they know it's a chondrosarcoma?"

"Well... they don't definitively.. but there is some erosion in the bone, one that was there a few years ago, and it matches the features of it." 

"Could it be something else? An infection of some kind eating away at the bone? Some bad scan? Is it just a hunch?"

"Well probably not the former. Infections don't look like that on scans. The latter... well... we're still not sure. We'll have to biopsy it to see." 

And with only a non-committal bye, she left. Leaving my confused parents and I wondering what the fuck just happened.

When I told a friend... he just said "You can't catch a break, can you?" It certainly feels that way sometimes...

Still, it's weird though. I didn't have any pain, or sudden weight loss associated with this sorta thing. Not even when they poked at the site of it. My haematology (blood doctor) team and the orthopedists weren't convinced by the scans at first, so they were sent off for an MRI and a full body scan (to both get more details on that lesion and see if there are any others elsewhere. 

And that bone scan confirmed the worst. There is osteoblast and other metabolic activity in that eroded bone. Meaning that it is some form of cancer. And the orthopaedists were saying... given my history of acute myeloid leukaemia... that it could be a myelosarcoma. The Acute myeloid leukaemia, my original, EXTREMELY agressive cancer, could've been back, this time in my bones...

My reaction to this? Exactly the same as here:

Yeah... I may have cancer again. But, just like when I first got it, just like when I relapsed, just as I've done in every challenge, when pursuing any goal, just as I've done ANYTHING in life... I took a step back, put it all into perspective and decided to focus on what I could control, on what could help me, rather than all the negative emotions, worries and thoughts; than all those things I couldn't. Because, as I always say, you'll always have a second way of looking at things. And you will ALWAYS be able to choose how you deal with any situation. No matter how hard it seems... Indeed, once you see that second, more positive, constructive path... taking it becomes the only LOGICAL thing to do.

I went out and looked at all the evidence of this being the worst case scenario... my original leukaemia coming back. There wasn't much in the way of evidence, bar a few isolated case reports of this happening in AML patients, and all of them had these bone manifestations at initial diagnosis, or relapse in cases where patients hadn't had bone marrow transplants; whose main purpose is to maintain a constant immune barrier to cancers coming back. And given the fact that there was a small sign of this lesion there a few years ago, and the aggressiveness of AML - the chances of it being that were tiny.

And luckily my haematologists agree. **Phew** In the off chance it is that though... I've still got heaps of options. Even if it's the worst worst case scenario... I've got one of my own. Over the last few months I've been looking seriously into cancer vaccine immunotherapies - thinking of a way of applying them to a wide range of cancers. There aren't many therapies that attack all cancers... my methodology may well do that - it uses your own tumour cells to prime your immune system to recognise and kill your cancer cells. Perfect - because unlike many personalised therapies, such as this one, this doesn't require huge imput and study of patients' own tumour profiles and the subsequent design of a drug or therapy for it. A version of it has even been used in my disease - AML - with decent succcess. And my methodology takes into account many of the shortcomings and recommendations of that one - and adds more from others. Plus there's another innovative component that'll get another pathway of the immune system involved; and all of this is cost and time efficient. My own idea may end up saving me...

But the more likely, less sinister case - that it's a chondrosarcoma, or some other, localised bone cancer I also looked into. And the good news about that - the 5 year survival rate for that is 90%. There may be post surgery radiation and chemo involved. Given my current situation, the graft versus host disease of the skin and other issues... it may be a bit more  confusing, it may take longer than most patients. But hey! I'll pull through!

I guess you could call me unlucky... getting a really bad... agressive cancer, relapsing with it, getting a precursor to a different, just as aggressive cancer and now getting YET ANOTHER CANCER isn't exactly something you'd celebrate.

But when you take a step back and think about it from another perspective; I'm extremely lucky. Because if I hadn't been cautious, and come in when I started getting that shortness of breath, if I hadn't had that CT scan... we may never have found this til it was big enough to cause me pain, at which point... it could have spread elsewhere. where it's virtually untreatable.

You always have a second view of looking at things. 

So why not choose the one that leaves you happiest?

Well... that's good and all. But that doesn't change the hard part... the treatment, though. I guess we don't really know the complete details of it yet. My orthopaedist, who specialises in bone tumours (in fact, he's happened to treat a few people I've met through this blog, as well as a good friend I know in real life - so I feel very safe in his hands!) is saying that we should just remove the segment of the rib and biopsy it later to find out exactly what it is. Why go in for 2 surgeries, and have the risk of causing swelling and facilitating spread of potential tumour cells when you're sure it is something that at the very least will progress to cancer, he argues. I guess he's the specialist here, and everyone else is, so I'm inclined to agree.

The surgery is on tomorrow. Or failing that Thursday. And it's gonna be painful as hell, I've been told. Not just the wound, which is gonna probably take longer to heal given my skin disease and steroid dosage, but the rib resection itself, which'll probably leave me in pain every time I breathe. The cramps I get, which are only getting worse really (another major concern of my haematologists and neurologists now) could make that even worse. Cause they happen in the chest and back - places he's planning to cut into. So that's gonna be... uncomfortable (a word doctors use to say pain when they don't want to say pain) to say the least...

There are some risks, my lung cavity could be pierced, there could be infections that come around with it. 

But hey - I'm in great hands.  And I'm choosing to see this, just as I have every other time, a minor inconvenience that'll lead to me being healthier and happier in the long run. As I've said before here... and as I spoke about here... fear can be paralyzing... 

But it's not only normal to feel that way about things like these... and knowing of, and acknowledging it isn't scary... it's the best thing you could do for yourself. Because when the hard times come over the next few days of surgery and weeks of recovery... I'm not gonna crash down into despair... I'm gonna look at the big picture. What this is all for. And I'm gonna get through it. Like I always have!

Thanks to everyone for those amazing messages and all the concern, and to all those friends in real life visiting too. Keep them going! Cause they'll keep me going over the next few weeks I'm sure! I'll keep you all updated but don't worry - in the meantime - I'll still be busy. I'll still keep working on those projects I've been hinting at. Cause hospital's boring. This may well get me working more efficiently than ever on it (IF I'm not high on morphine all the time that is =P ). 

Thanks again everyone - and please don't worry. I'm in good hands. My doctors, my nurses, my parents, and my own. Share this, or this sentiment around, and I hope it helps others going through their own tough times too. 

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Frustration. You New Normal Doesn't Have To Be A Bad Thing...

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I haven't posted anything on the blog in about 3 weeks now.

I've been through a rough patch...

Nearly 3 weeks ago now, I had a couple of seizures. I'd had a few before, if you've read my previous post on hallucinations, you'd know it was a result of PRES syndrome and that the weeks after the seizures were the scariest of my life. During that time, I'd question even the most mundane aspects of life, be hugely forgetful and would be confused by things, such as movie plots, that normally wouldn't phase me.

The day before I had these last seizures, I'd asked my doctor if the ones I had before could affect me over the long term. I'd been feeling for a while that my ability to memorize things had been compromised. I was finding it harder to understand things, and it became more and more evident as I started studying for exams that those previous seizures had impacted my capability to learn and remember things.  

Then, the next day, the seizures happened. I was put onto a maximum dose of anti-epileptic medications. And, almost straight away, my mind was REALLY affected. It made me feel fuzzy, unable to concentrate, confused and perpetually drowsy for the next few weeks. This time though, they couldn't even figure out what had caused the seizures. They'd just... happened... overnight and it was lucky I was sleeping next to a wall so my parents had heard me banging against it when I started convulsing and could come to my aid. And to make things worse, my exams were only a week away.

I was scared.

And I started doubting myself.

It seemed all my positive attributes, not only my brain and mental capability, but also my physicality and my looks, had taken a huge hit during my treatment.

It's made me wonder... what if this occurs forever?

What if my mind and my body will be affected for my whole life by all this?

 What if I never get back to what I used to be. What if this was my new normal?

Before, when I used to doubt myself about my losses in looks and physicality, I could always fall back to the fact that I was still smart to keep me happy and positive. But even that's been jeopardised by treatment...

Now I find myself really questioning all the struggles I've been through and all the effort I'd put in to get past them.

The strict control of my diet for months... what was that for? I wasn't losing any weight, I wasn't getting any fitter and I certainly wasn't starting to look like what I used to either.

The constant exercise I was doing? Why bother when I'd be going to hospital every two weeks where I'd lose all the minuscule gains I'd made? 7 months after my transplant and I can barely last 5 minutes in a game of basketball, yet alone get anywhere close to dunking. 

After being through so much, I guess I expected a bit of smooth sailing every now and then, or a surge in progress or SOMETHING to show for all the pain I'd put myself through. But it hasn't.

And it's... JUST... SO...  FRUSTRATING.

The frustration got me to a point where I was asking myself; what is the point in life? I mean we all go through it and go through our journeys... but what's it all for in the end? Our thoughts, feelings, emotions... in the end, aren't they all just a bunch of chemical reactions? Who cares about us and what we feel? In the long run, aren't we just tiny pieces of some huger puzzle that no-one knows the answer to? 

After a while of this confusion, I needed a way out. After a while, I opened up a browser and headed over to this blog and reread all the comments and messages about how it had helped people. I re-read the post about the lessons I'd learned from cancer. I decided to take my own advice. What I'd done before, I did once again for this newer... longer challenge.

I took a step back and looked at where I was objectively... almost as if I was someone else looking at my life. That pushed the anger and frustration into the background. Then I asked myself why I was feeling pissed off. Why I was getting depressed. 

That's when I realised that the frustration I was feeling; the negativity, the anger, the depression - that was all coming from ME. It was a product of MY MIND. Why was I getting angry then? What was it doing... other than making me more frustrated? 
There wasn't an answer to that question. Getting frustrated about something I couldn't help... that made no sense. 
Why not instead focus on the things I could control instead? 

For the first time in weeks... that haze of anger faded away. But there were still some things that bugged me.
And so I kept asking myself... why?

So the transplant and my treatment have ended up changing me for good.

Why should I let that make me feel down? It was something I couldn't control, and putting myself down for something I couldn't change was useless, and only harming myself.

So cancer had changed how I looked... 

Why was I getting down and depressed about that? First of all, were they eventhinking those things in the first place? Even if they were, why should what someone THINKS about me make me feel bad? Did I even know them? Even if I did,wouldn't getting down, negative and angry about it only hurtme? And probably make them happier?

So I wasn't as fit as before. 

Why should I get down about that? I could still work towards getting back to there. Yeah I couldn't get there quickly.. but losing weight and getting fit wasn't something that happened overnight for anyone, yet alone me. Because I knew it'd take time, I could give myself time to get there. My mentality was the best thing on my side in that battle... having getting back into basketball as a goal would be a great goal to keep me busy, that was for sure... (here's how I managed to do it over time. And how you  too can put the best thing on your side in the constant battle of staying healthy - your MIND). 

Indeed, why wasn't I happy, or proud about what I had done already? 

To come back from not being able to walk to being able to run around the suburb and play a few basketball games (not well I might add, but I did manage to play a few) is a HUGE achievement. Something that I should be proud of, something I could draw from later in life.

This "new normal" of mine... it wasn't something to adjust to. It was something far beyond what I had before. 

That version of me in the past, could he have gotten through what I have in the past 2 years or see life as clearly as I can now? Could he walk down the street, always comfortable in his skin? He did care about people, but could he feel what they had? Did he know what it was really like? He couldn't then. But I can now. And if you've been through hard times yourself, you can too (though trust me - you don't wanna wait to learn it the hard way). 

All the doubt I was having about life after all of this... I re-examined.

What was the purpose of life if all my work could get thrown away in an instant by my health? 

Even if our lives seemed meaningless, our feelings and thoughts still exist. And, if there is no other clear reason for us being here, why not make our purpose to leave this place in a better place than we found it, make others happy and enjoy ourselves in the process? The power we have to give happiness to others can never be taken away. And that, in the end, is what matters, and what lasts. 

Seeing the hundreds of thanks and messages of appreciation I'd gotten from others about my posts made me realise that the happiness I could give others from sharing my experiences was more rewarding than the superficial, fleeting moments of joy that good looks, money, power and fame could bring.

But despite seeing all this, losing some of my mental proficiency was still a scary prospect. Since finding out I had leukemia, I'd held on to a dream of someday becoming the guy who found or helped find the cure for cancers. But these seizures and the side effects I was getting from the medication was making that dream seem unattainable. Hell, I couldn't even count on myself to be the best doctor I could possibly be now, yet alone one who could think up cures for diseases.

And so I fell back into that spiral of doubt. I got scared again. What if I never got back to being as sharp as I was before?

But a few words from my doctor a few days ago took away that fear. 

Those words were very much like what he first told me (that the good news is you're 17 and you have leukemia, but the bad news is, you're 17 and you have leukemia) and was HOW I'd realised that you always had a second way of looking at things.
He told me of a professor of his while he was studying maths (before he decided to do medicine of course) who'd told him that any problem was solvable. All you had to do was take a step back and approach the problem from another direction, from another perspective, over and over again until things became clear.

The same thing I'd realised myself... in someone else's words. 

And so I started looking at my current situation a little differently.  

Maybe I'd end up getting bad marks in my upcoming exams because I just couldn't grasp the logic behind things or remember things as well as I used to. But for the rest of my life, I would have the knowledge that I could still pass in a very hard course while my brain wasn't even functioning properly. 

Why should I stress out over exams that I physically was incapacitated for? Wasn't that only harming myself and wasting time I could put towards getting a few extra marks?

After exams were over, why should I stress about the results? What would that stress achieve other than making me feel bad about myself? It definitely couldn't change the results.

Why was I worrying about the side effects of the medication? I was confused and drowsy right now, but that doesn't mean those side effects would stay with me in the long term. It was because I was put on the maximum dose without any build-up or weaning into it that I was having these symptoms in the first place. Worrying about it wasn't accomplishing anything other than making me feel bad... so why do it?

And so looking at things from another perspective and asking why is helping me to get over the frustration and self doubt that had been building up inside of me for a while. I'm not completely over it yet, I still get angry at myself and depressed when I puff out within minutes of starting a workout, or can't remember things in an exam or when I look at myself in the mirror. But I'm working on it. And I'm feeling happier and happier and less frustrated every day. 

It can be hard seeing another way of looking at things, especially when your brain is against you. It's even harder when you've made negativity a habit, something you reflexively feel and do. But if you can share your feelings with someone else, if you can do positive, reinforcing things like setting an alarm, going for a job or if it comes to it, re-reading these posts when you're at your lowest -  you CAN be happy and you CAN accomplish whatever you want to.

All you've got to do is give it take a step back and give it some time. 


Hopefully the next one won't take as long to post up. This one took a very long time to write with the fuzzy head and I'm honestly not sure if it's that good or if I keep repeating myself... the next one won't take as long hopefully and will probably be about why you can't afford not to give blood.

https://www.facebook.com/musingsofamedstudentpatient <-- If you or a loved one needs help or if you enjoy my blogs or if you're interested in medicine, like my page on facebook =]

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