And the never-ending list of specialists.

First and foremost, I had noticed that I had started steadily gaining weight. What I mean by that, for me is that I used to gain a good 10 lbs monthly the week before my “Aunt Flo” came to visit me. Then it would steadily die down. However, this time, it just kept coming and not disappearing. For some reason, it didn’t faze me at first, and it really should have.

My knowledge base in eating properly was pretty good. I used to work out consistently and had been able to maintain a healthy weight even after not working out for a few years. During my pregnancy with my child, I had been pre gestational diabetic, so I was sent to a nutritionist, and I checked my blood sugars often and ate appropriately for my daily needs. In fact, I was so worried about it, I REVISITED a nutritionist, just to REFRESH my memory, and was told I was doing everything right. Yet, I’m packing on weight, and one month it was 18lbs in a month!

Picture representing a host of specialists from: freepik

At this point, I have a cardiologist, a kidney specialist, a gastroenterologist, and my own gynecologist, and neurologist studying my case, along with a new practitioner because my reliable one had retired. The kidney specialist, who was one of the amazing people that saved my life, gave me hope and a willingness to keep fighting looked me in the eye and said, “There is NO WAY that any person on the planet can physically eat that much to possibly gain that much weight in one month.” My caloric intake had literally gone down to approximately 500 calories a day if I was lucky.

To consume food, would cause misery in my GI tract that I was not prepared for. My right-side abdomen would reel in pain, I would be doubled over in pain. My throat would feel like it was still consuming whatever I had eaten the day before. Heartburn had become my middle name. Even the task of brushing my teeth that would send me gagging, and my stomach “snapping’ like a rubber band against my esophagus (at least that’s the best way to explain it). None of it made sense, but here I was rocking systemic illness.

Yet I continued to gain… there were days that I would BALLOON, to the point that I actually looked pregnant. In fact, one Thanksgiving my family witnessed me eat a 6″ tiny plate of food and balloon from 38 inches around to 54 inches around, in a matter of three hours! I promptly went home to go to bed, missing out on my family I love so much.

Then there was the fact that I was losing my ability to remember things. My short-term memory was beginning to be shot, and I lost my ability to recall long term memories as well. Tremors in my hands took away my ability to bake and decorate cakes from my home when my kids slept. My favorite hobby and secondary way of making a tiny bit of income, and that was shot as well. My daytime job, it wasn’t a possibility at that point. I worked in the service industry. Customers that have known me since I was a child, whom I had dealt with at least once or twice yearly, I was beginning to forget their names. The customers that hit the hardest for me, that really convinced me it was time to go home, was my bestie’s parents, that I’ve known since the third grade, I couldn’t remember their names that day I saw them walk into the business. I cried all the way home the day I had to resign from my job and give in to my illness.

When this took over my life….. I was a service writer, baker at night, ran a private counseling group online for abused women, mother, stepmother, taxi driver, tutor, and ran the household. Slowly each and everything was taken away from me. The one thing that I begged each doctor and specialist was, “I don’t want drugs, I WANT MY LIFE BACK.”