- I didn’t die, but my life as I knew it ended
Content/Trigger Warning: Medical issues, Bodily (mal)functions, Mental health, Trauma
In September of 2022, I had another really bad menstrual cycle period. 10 years before I had started getting excruciating painful episodes of bowel movement, usually on the day before my period. I would sit on the toilet and have relief-less diarrhea, have so much pain from cramps that I felt faint and cannot keep myself on the toilet, I’d be sweating so much that my clothes soaked through, I’ve also vomited on myself on the toilet from the pain and nausea. Afterwards I’d be freezing and shake for hours. Then I’d have cramps and diarrhea and other miscellaneous symptoms for the remainder of my period. I was/am so terrified of these episodes that I’ve gotten panic buttons that sounds an alarm in the house to call for my husband, who would then hold me on the toilet and help me off the toilet. I’d have my cellphone with me whenever I go to the bathroom in the mornings right before my period. Some years I’d maybe have 1 episode, others, multiples. After the first episode, I went to Planned Parenthood for a pelvic exam because I could only pay for an appointment there. I was writing my PhD dissertation, and my PI (Principal Investigator) whose lab I worked in refused to give me time away from lab to write, so when I told them I needed time away, he put me on Planned Education Leave Plan (PELP) so that he would no longer have to pay me a stipend or cover my graduate student health insurance. Planned Parenthood could not find anything wrong with me. Meanwhile, I continued to have these period/toilet episodes and they terrified and depressed me.
In September of 2022, I had a bad period, and it didn’t end after a week. I started crying. I had diarrhea and abdominal pain until my period in October 2022- at which point I was in so much pain my husband took me to the ER. Before we left for our house, I asked my husband to park me near the door and bring me our cats. Through my tears, I made sure to give them each a 10-second hug in case I did not come back from the ER. At the ER, they eventually released me with Tramadol, Dicyclomine, and Zofran with orders to follow up with my Primary Doctor- they acknowledged that I was in terrible pain and nausea, but they could not identify anything ‘remarkable’ other than that I had fluid in the pelvis that showed up on the CT scans. The very kind ER doctor insisted on watching me take a dose of Tramadol before releasing me- I told him I was afraid of becoming a drug addict and didn’t want to take any of the drugs and he assured me that the possibility was so low as to be negligible in my case. So I was able to leave the ER after an entire day, and hug my cats when I got home.
Many things happened in Oct-Dec of 2022, although each felt long and torturous. I had a lot of tests done, they either came back normal or abnormal, but the medical person involved didn’t know what to make of it so they told me they could not find anything wrong. I was in constant relentless gastrointestinal (GI) distress, nausea, painful fatigue, and insomnia. I was bedridden, I could not walk without assistance. Everything hurt and I couldn’t even pinpoint where the pain was coming from; it was everywhere. It was a lot, I’ll summarize:
- I saw my Primary, who ordered more tests. Results were either clearly normal, or borderline abnormal, or abnormal but there was no clear indication for what was wrong.
- I saw an ObGyn, which I’d been avoiding after failed IVF. I was put on the lowest dose of birth control (I told them I did not tolerate it well). That I likely had endometriosis, and that birth control was the only available option to control it.
- I saw a GI doctor, who told me there was nothing to do but schedule a colonoscopy, and the earliest I could get one was the day before Thanksgiving.
- I could only speak in a whisper.
- I could not stop crying all day, everyday. I started feeling pain in my chest, surely from all the crying.
- I got the colonoscopy and they did not even bother to call me with the results because there was nothing ‘remarkable’.
- My husband found a psychologist for me, who listened to me cry and taught me Diaphragmatic Breathing. The first two therapists did not work out, one had scheduled other activities and could not make our appointment and did not tell me until 15mins after the appointment. The second was scared that I had health issues and advised me to see a ‘real doctor’. The psychologist my husband found for me, Heather, was not scared by my crying or my ongoing health issues. She became a tiny island of calm for me.
- I got a psychiatrist who prescribed Sertraline and Clonazepam. I was terrified of addiction so I was afraid to use the clonazepam and on day 3 of 1/4 dose of the lowest dose sertraline tablet, I had an anxiety attack that involved 2 hours of me screaming and crying and kicking around on the bed- my husband took me to a mental health urgent care clinic and by then I had settled from sheer exhaustion.
- I had difficulty making medical appointments and getting prescriptions filled because it was the holidays.
- My psychiatrist yelled at me for not taking ‘enough’ clonazepam and that I’m making myself worse by not taking a ‘therapeutic dose’ of sertraline.
- I lost 20lbs.
- I started having difficulty breathing.
- I stopped being able to watch television, it made my nausea worse.
- I couldn’t read because I was so tired and I felt I could not focus my eyes and it just made me more nauseated.
- My sister came to see me. She cooked many things that would be healthy for me to eat, but I was still afraid to eat anything other than rice porridge.
- My husband had to take medical leave from work to take care of me. Our relationship was very unstable at that time due to my mental health issues and it triggering my husband’s own traumas.
- My sister cancelled subsequent visits to come see me- I scared her; she had never known me to be in such a state- I was always calm, optimistic, considerate, overly prepared and helpful. I was now often the opposite.
- I learned that there was a complicated mess of family history involving physical health and mental health from my mother’s side of the family. I still know nothing of my father’s, although I have my suspicions. I was living in northern California at the time and my father had never visited me there, not anytime during my 7 years of graduate school at UC Davis, not during our rental period, not anytime in the following 8 years we had owned our house in Sacramento. The idea he would visit me during my illness was inconceivable- the only hope was that he would allow my Mom to visit me.
- My Mom came to see me. It would be the second time she had ever visited us in our house in Sacramento. It only happened because my sister bought the flight tickets from southern Ca to northern Ca for her, and also hired a car service to transport her between the airport and our house.
- I felt so much guilt and shame and disgust and anger with myself. I felt so much fear and sadness.
- I was convinced I was very close to death and I wished for it. I wished for it because to commit suicide required more energy which I didn’t have, and I didn’t want to have lied to my psychologist and everyone else who asked. And my husband promised he would not take me to a psychiatric facility if I promised I would not make suicide attempts.
- I asked repeatedly that if I was not ‘normal’ by such and such a day, that my husband and sister would take me across the border to Oregon, where euthanasia was legal. Somehow in my confused mind, I could just cross the border and get the drugs the same night.
- I just wanted everything to end.