Status: Updated pretty much monthly.
Neuropathy
Introduction
When you’re sick, you expect someone to be there for you. Whether it be a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, any other family member, a best friend, a teacher, a spouse—anyone—there always seems to be someone there to hold your hand when you have the sniffles.
So what would you do if it’s not the sniffles? This time, you’re in pain—serious pain. It’s not just the little ‘ouch, I have a paper cut’ pain. No, this time, it’s something bigger; something new.
You feel like you’re fighting a war with an unseen force. A simple touch to the skin is like stepping over a mine field—it sets off an explosion. Just the littlest poke feels like electrocution. You can’t move. You can’t be touched. No one can come near you without it setting off the stinging feeling that’s pulsing through your nerves. You feel like your entire body is on fire and this time, there’s no extinguisher.
You’re not sure how to handle the circumstances, seeing as you’re not usually one to get sick. You’re the one who seems invincible and superior to any germ that crawls around on doorknobs and desks; the worst you’ve ever dealt with is the seasonal stomach flu. This is no flu, though. It keeps coming back, again and again, like that pesky mosquito that you can just never get rid of, but no matter what, you remember you always have a support system. Other than that, all you need is a doctor and some drugs and you’re all set.
But are you really?
Now that you’re in this vulnerable state, let’s take away the doctor. The medical professionals go one of two ways with your case—they either look at you after running a couple of tests and call you a mystery, or they look at you after running a couple of tests and say you’re a nut job who’s making it all up. Either way, they wave their hand and swat you away like that pesky mosquito.
Next, you decide that if they won’t help you any, then you’ll just go to the Rite Aid and take a couple pills. Well guess what? That doesn’t do you any good either. Acetaminophen. Aspirin. Naproxen. Ibuprofen. They’re all the same—they do nothing for your pain. No matter how many you pop in a day, you still feel like you’re being repetitively stabbed with a fork all over your body. The pain is so unbearable; all you can do is lie down in bed under the covers, hiding your defeat from the world.
The only thing keeping you going anymore is your friends, your family, or anyone else who acts as your rock—stable and strong, and always there for you, no matter what. Now that you’re sick, everyone else seems to have given up except for them. They’re the one that pushes you to look for your own diagnosis, to see new doctors; to not lose faith. So what would happen if they were to disappear? Like morning fog, they slowly wither away with the crowd, getting sucked into disappointment and unknowing. They’ve given up on you too and now you’re alone.
In such a big world with so many voices, how do you make it?
So what would you do if it’s not the sniffles? This time, you’re in pain—serious pain. It’s not just the little ‘ouch, I have a paper cut’ pain. No, this time, it’s something bigger; something new.
You feel like you’re fighting a war with an unseen force. A simple touch to the skin is like stepping over a mine field—it sets off an explosion. Just the littlest poke feels like electrocution. You can’t move. You can’t be touched. No one can come near you without it setting off the stinging feeling that’s pulsing through your nerves. You feel like your entire body is on fire and this time, there’s no extinguisher.
You’re not sure how to handle the circumstances, seeing as you’re not usually one to get sick. You’re the one who seems invincible and superior to any germ that crawls around on doorknobs and desks; the worst you’ve ever dealt with is the seasonal stomach flu. This is no flu, though. It keeps coming back, again and again, like that pesky mosquito that you can just never get rid of, but no matter what, you remember you always have a support system. Other than that, all you need is a doctor and some drugs and you’re all set.
But are you really?
Now that you’re in this vulnerable state, let’s take away the doctor. The medical professionals go one of two ways with your case—they either look at you after running a couple of tests and call you a mystery, or they look at you after running a couple of tests and say you’re a nut job who’s making it all up. Either way, they wave their hand and swat you away like that pesky mosquito.
Next, you decide that if they won’t help you any, then you’ll just go to the Rite Aid and take a couple pills. Well guess what? That doesn’t do you any good either. Acetaminophen. Aspirin. Naproxen. Ibuprofen. They’re all the same—they do nothing for your pain. No matter how many you pop in a day, you still feel like you’re being repetitively stabbed with a fork all over your body. The pain is so unbearable; all you can do is lie down in bed under the covers, hiding your defeat from the world.
The only thing keeping you going anymore is your friends, your family, or anyone else who acts as your rock—stable and strong, and always there for you, no matter what. Now that you’re sick, everyone else seems to have given up except for them. They’re the one that pushes you to look for your own diagnosis, to see new doctors; to not lose faith. So what would happen if they were to disappear? Like morning fog, they slowly wither away with the crowd, getting sucked into disappointment and unknowing. They’ve given up on you too and now you’re alone.
In such a big world with so many voices, how do you make it?
♠ ♠ ♠
Yeah. This was the long description at first, but I thought it was too long for that, so I moved it. <3This story is special to me. I went for over a year undiagnosed with Lyme Disease. Before I got my test results back, people were constantly telling me that I was making myself sick. It was my own fault.