My Sob Story

There isn't a great place to start my "story". I think the fatigue started when I was 14, but unfortunately symptoms like fatigue can start in very slowly.

Between 14-16, I puffed out so fast I have large stretch marks to this day. They were a lovely shade of red for years.

From girl who climbed trees and went bike-riding to the girl who just took long slow walks.

You may or may not be able to imagine the frustration. In the many following years, I tried dieting, I tried exercising, to no avail. Some of you... you diet, you exercise, you actually lose weight. Thinking back, I'm not surprised I didn't lose any weight with my efforts- I was quite active when I initially started gaining weight, in the first place!

My junior year of highschool I kept getting sick, so my tonsils and adenoids were ripped right out. Senior year though, I was thinking to myself, why do I still have the bouts of fatigue that I had last year, now without actually getting sick?

But when I started college, I was all optimistic- I assumed I would be able to go to school full time and swing a part time job, then maybe fit in a few social activities. A mere 5 years later, surely I'd be on my way to a high paying job. Yeah... no. In college, I started drinking coffee, and then, more coffee, trying to keep up with the worsening fatigue.

Several fuzzy years followed. I remember locking myself out of my apartment 6 times one month. I remember not being able to remember my mail box number, even after months. I remember random things starting to ache, hands getting cold more and more frequently. I remember awful weakness.

The worst part of those years, I think, was:

*The way my hands hurt whenever I got even a little cold. Cold feet, cold hands, to be avoided at all costs. Yes, I'm sure everyone's hands hurt when they are freezing. But not many people report the same aching stabbing *joint* pain in their hands just when they get chilled. Nor do they get chilled as often. I once described it this way to a friend: someone has threaded a piece of yarn or string through all of your finger joints, and then has grabbed both ends, pulling back and forth so that you get rug-burn in your joint.

*The way I'd get jittery and weak. You might think the jitters would be the result of coffee, cause it's the devil, you know. But I didn't actually OD on caffeine, and the coffee was actually just exacerbating an issue I'd had since high school. It's kinda like hypoglycemia (something I'd never heard of until last year, when I was 23). I seem to have odd symptoms in conjunction with hunger- protein seems to help quite a bit. Over periods of time, sometimes this will be more of an issue, sometimes not. During periods of time, if I didn't get food right away, I'd become confused and weak. And by confused, I mean, can't even decide wtf to eat while I'm standing in the kitchen... for an extended period of time.

*The memory troubles and cognitive slowing that would become more frequent. 'Brain fog' anyone? We used to joke about my "early Alzheimers"

I had to drop my job. Too tired to get up one morning for my shift.

I went down to fewer credits.

I moved out of the dorms and into a one bedroom apartment.

I was attempting stress reduction. I'd considered several angles for what the effing problem was, and could tell that stress really, really didn't help.

But still... why were others able to physically handle more stress? Surely a young woman in her 20's should be able to manage full time college semesters? I didn't even have to do particularly well, just to graduate with a decent GPA. College is stressful, we know that, but my decline in the face of these expected stresses was disheartening.

At heart, I'd like to be a workaholic. My parents, they worked hard to achieve what they have. So from a young age, I was all about achieving academically. Accepting that I can no longer achieve the stellar grades I was once able to achieve... was difficult for me.

Well, around age 23, I was managing. Pushing along. Things weren't easy, but as long as I was making some progress on my college degree and getting halfway decent grades, I had something to hang on to. I was in the 'accepting my limitations' phase. Then, the winter of 07-08 smacked me around.