Day 5 on antibiotics = day 95 with a low grade fever. It's kicking my butt. It's been one thing after another for the past 2 and a half years, and even though it's been a wide range of health problems, the worst thing has stayed the same: we have no idea what's going on, and it drives me nuts. Yes, I miss school and running a lot... but that's not the worst part. It wouldn't be so bad if I knew I wasn't supposed to be running. When I talk to people about that, a lot of them will say something like "how could you want to run if you've had a fever for 95 days?!" Unfortunately, I've forgotten what it feels like to feel good, so I really don't know how sick I feel. If we knew what was wrong with me and that I couldn't run because of it, I'd honestly be okay. It'd suck for a little while, but there's a lot more to life than running and I wouldn't have a choice anyways. I don't even think it's that I want to run (I usually do feel too crappy to run), I'm just very used to pushing through things. Not knowing if I'm supposed to run isn't the only thing that drives me nuts (Uncle Andy told me not to, so that made that 100x easier for me). I also feel guilty about a lot of things because I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I feel guilty for not exercising, I feel guilty when I feel a little better and have fun with my friends, I feel guilty when I lay on the couch and watch Psych because I'm too tired to do anything else... yeah, the list just keeps going. Once again, if I was diagnosed with something, I wouldn't feel so guilty. My sickness would be more like a fact to me than just a bunch of weird symptoms that the doctors can't put together. My parents and I were talking about the Mayo Clinic again this morning, because I've been very down about still being undiagnosed... especially considering that we were so excited about my new doctor. But... I brought up that I'd feel bad going there because they wouldn't think I'm sick enough. I'm not critically ill right now, I'm chronically ill. When you're critically ill, it's obvious and something needs to be done to take care of it. When you're chronically ill and a medical mystery, well... according to the doctors, you're not dying, your blood work is pretty normal, your organs look good, so... you can wait.
I've only been on the doxycycline for 5 days, so I've got 16 days left to see what happens. I'm almost a little scared about randomly getting healthy if I never find out what was wrong. I think it's mainly because I'm afraid that I won't be able to tell if I'm healthy... my parents say that it'd be obvious though. My weight had dropped down to 87.5 pounds last week (14lbs down from my healthy weight) when I was at the doctors, and they said that I don't have enough fat on me to think straight (especially emotionally). Instead of blaming it on the fever, I'm very good at blaming it on myself. Then I think that I'm sick because I don't eat enough.... then my dad reminds me that I was sick before I lost weight. It's just a very hard situation to be in, and there are so many things going on that it's hard to tell what's caused from what.
That post probably makes me sound like a mental nutcase, but those are some of the things that I keep fighting through each day, and they aren't fun things. At all. I really just want to skip to the "being healthy" part, but I know that this is a time for a lot of growth in other areas, especially spiritually. I'm also promising a more upbeat post for next time, because there are good things that I want to share too... I just had to vent first.
Random side note: This song has gotten me through a lot. You should probably listen to it.
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