Here we go again. I’m so tired of this. Today was my second appointment with the Gastroenterologist. I would finally find out the results of all the tests they ran on me. While I wasn’t exactly hoping to have anything they were looking for, I was hoping for an easy answer. ‘Oh,’ he’d say. ‘You have parasites’ or ‘an infection’ or ‘a thyroid problem.’ He’d finish, ‘Here’s a pill’ or ‘you’ll need a shot’ or even ‘change your diet like this’. Once I followed his instructions, everything would be back to normal. No more nights in pain, in the bathroom and drowning in my own senseless anxiety.

Needless to say, this is not what happened. Every test came up normal. Cutting out dairy didn’t make any difference. So, I’m left with two choices – change my meds (apparently Celexa can cause problems like this randomly) or get a colonoscopy. Even though the doctor told me that the colonoscopy was a ‘routine procedure’ and ‘not bad’ because he gives a nice amount of sedation. The only unpleasant part is the cleansing preparation. I’ll leave the details to your imagination.

Not a fan of procedures, routine or not, I’ve decided to switch the meds. I put a call in to my psychiatrist, and now I just have to wait. I’m not good at waiting – especially when the Evil Worms of Doom decide to make an appearance. Sometimes it’s not that bad. I’ll have an attack or two and it will pass. Other times I’ll be left feeling like shit for several hours. But the worst thing about it is the anxiety.

Many times a flare begins with a wave of nausea, setting off the anxiety, which increases the nausea, compounding the anxiety in a nice little self-feeding circle. Then the cramps and then the rest of it. I resort to causing myself minor pain to take my mind off the stomach issues. It works pretty well, giving me a chance to pull myself together to a certain extent – often long enough to move on to another escape mechanism. Surprisingly enough, writing about the fear helps. As long as I can write exactly how I feel, even if it’s mindless drivel, the anxiety backs off a few notches. Reading helps, as does surfing the web.

But in that moment of fear, I border on utter panic. I feel that the fear is endless, that it will swallow me and I’ll lose myself in it. Sometimes I begin to believe there’s no way out. So far I have been able to force myself out of these spaces, but I worry that I won’t always be able to. I know there are people who will help me, if I just ask. In those moments, though, I don’t think there’s anyone to ask. I’m afraid of asking, of sounding stupid and immature. Of sounding crazy. And so I do what I need to do until it passes and hope that next time it’s easier.

I’d like to have my health back now, please.

Posted on January 28th, 2005 by Kat
Filed under: General