I suppose it’s about time to bring this blog back to
life. My last post was exactly two
years ago today. I was living in
Namibia and I was fighting an illness that I didn’t understand and wasn’t going away. My doctor in Namibia told me
I had mono. I didn’t have mono. I
spent most of my last 4 months in Rundu in bed, each week my symptoms got
worse. To be fair to my Namibian
doctor, I wasn’t forthcoming with my deteriorating condition because I didn’t
want to be sent home and was hoping that I would eventually recover. But, when my illness got so bad that I was
struggling to even get to the market for food, I finally filled Peace Corps in
on how things were going.
A week later I was in a hospital in Windhoek. I had a hospital bracelet on that had
my name, date of birth, and the words “multiple sclerosis”. I don’t have multiple sclerosis. But for one very long weekend, I
thought that I did, and so did they.
It seemed plausible.
I’d had an MRI on a Friday, the neurologist told me his initial thoughts
and even mentioned ALS, and said we’d have to wait to see what the radiologist
had to say on Monday. Long, long
weekend. I had some visitors. The Peace Corps nurse, Kate, a South African, very dedicated to her job and to the volunteers she
served, came to me to visit me. My
PC brother Rob came to visit me as well.
And so, there I was.
I was in the best hospital in Namibia. A nice hospital.
Private room. I had a balcony
that gave me access to a roof top patio with fountains. The room was white, of course. I had a small bed, and a private
bathroom. There was a crucifix on
the wall next to a wall-mounted television and that was about it. The nurses didn’t like me. I wanted to check myself out and go
stay at the Peace Corps housing, but they insisted that I stay. My thoughts were pretty much these: I’m
either dying, or I’m going to be permanently limited physically for the rest of
my life.
After the initial shock, I had the opportunity, for the
first time in my life, to reflect on my life as if it were actually
ending. I figured, one way or the
other, it was ending. Progress
would be replaced with either death or maintenance. I would either die or depend on others from here on
out. Those thoughts then turned to
reflection on what I’ve done in my life and what I felt about what I’ve done in
my life. What I found was a
patchwork of efforts that were not easy, but also never brought me in a
direction that I actually cared about with the exception of Peace Corps. I had some awful years before Peace
Corps, and I thought about them. I
then started to think about other things in the world that interested me, but I
neglected. I’d always been
interested in the sciences, like biology, physics, medicine. I wondered why I never pursued those
things. I’d spent the last year in
a country surrounded by people that would never have the opportunities that I
have here in America. Promising
young boys and girls that would likely never find
themselves in a position of empowerment similar to what we take for granted
here in America. Yet, I never pursued
the things that I really wanted to, and I had no excuse for why I hadn’t.
Four months later, I was still in bed. But at that point, I was in my parent’s
house in Bethlehem, PA. Each scary
diagnosis had been ruled out. I’d
been staring at ceilings or sleeping for nearly 9 months at that point. I knew
this was hard on my parents, but they never showed it. I’d seen more doctors then I care to
recount here. They all agreed
something was wrong, and they all had no clue what it was. I was thankful for the few visible
physical issues I had, swollen joints and some others I won’t bore you with,
because I believe they were the only things between me and a diagnosis of “crazy”.
My sister, Mary, had been asking me to see her
doctor in Virginia for a couple months at this point. That would mean a long trip, and I didn’t have much faith in
doctors or much of a stomach for a 4-hour drive at this point, but I went. This was in May, 2013. Everything about her doctor was
different. He tested for
parasites, allergies, vitamin deficiencies, hormone levels, everything. I followed up with him a month later
and he asked me “are you aware you’re allergic to eggs and gliadin?”. I wasn’t
aware and, in fact, eggs and gliadin were pretty much my entire diet. He then patiently went through all of
my test results, informing me that I was (paraphrasing) a mess. He didn’t have any definitive thought
on what triggered all of this, but he had thoughts on how to get me out of it. He put me on a very strict diet,
supplements, and a few weeks of antibiotics. After two weeks I was putting in a small garden at my
parent’s house. A couple weeks
later I started pre-med courses at Penn State. I completed my pre-med postbac this past December. Six weeks ago, I took the MCAT exam. Next month, I will start working as a
medical scribe in the ER at New York Hospital in Queens. In June, I’ll begin applying to medical schools.
I turned 42 a couple weeks ago. I’ll be moving from State College, PA to Queens in a few
weeks. Things are good. Thanks for reading.
