“Why is this happening to me?” I asked as the 11th specialist I saw told me he was sure I was faking it. I wanted to punch him in the face and find a way to prove this was real. I craved for an answer that was healable. I craved the feeling of being “right” in terms of knowing my body. I never wanted to see this “doctor” ever again. I wanted to go home, where I didn’t feel embarrassed to vomit. Home is where I didn’t feel scared, or attention-seeking to collapse when my body didn’t want to go further. Where really was my home now? Was it the lovely place on Ridgecrest Drive that smelled of lavender and honey? Or was it the place where everything smelled like alcohol and cleaner? I spent most of my time at this dirty, scary place, and isn’t that what a home is?

All of this started 3 years ago when I was about 12 years old. My life was great, with a few occasional doctor visits for what I thought was just the stomach flu. I thought this pain I was feeling was normal. At times, I would feel sick in a way that was unexplainable. There would be times, in my past school years,  I would miss days at a time due to this excruciating stomach pain. It felt as if someone was standing 2 inches away from me with a sniper pointed at my stomach, and they didn’t give me time to brace myself for the pain that was to come. It would hit so hard, so randomly, it felt as if I was in a war, walking on the ground while my enemies were above, striking down on me. Only if I was warned about this new war that was about to come my way, everything would be different.
I woke up that Sunday morning in September 2018, preparing for our last fall softball game that year. It was already the second week of school, and I was ready to pitch against a really good team we hadn’t yet played. It was my turn to pitch and strike-out #19, as I had done in the previous inning. I threw a pitch, and my eyesight was gone. My eyes started ticking uncontrollably and my legs went limp, and this is when I knew the devil had come to town. I finished the game, and when I got home, my parents took me to the Emergency room. They sent me in for blood tests, and even did the “Chinese torture test,” to make sure I wasn’t faking the blinking. The next morning I couldn’t get out of bed. My body felt glued to the bed, and, if I got up, I would tear all my skin off and hurt more. I missed the entire week of school - which created that first taste of guilt and disappointment.  I wanted to force myself to get out of bed and shake off all the pain. This same feeling lingered for the next month and a half. I could feel myself let my teachers and fellow students down. I had gone to 3 doctors already. They gave me medicine that left me motionless. I was so exhausted from this medicine that blinking felt like running a marathon. I had finally reached 1 month of missed school, but this was no happy anniversary.

One month became two, and two became three - in what felt like a week. I felt so scared of what others were thinking of me and where they thought I was. I was scared my teachers didn’t like me anymore, or that they thought I was less of a person because of this. I didn’t put myself on social media. I lost contact with all of my friends, and it felt as if I didn’t even have a family anymore. I started isolating myself and I basically lived in my room. I would only leave my room to use the restroom and grab some water, but it was hard to even handle that. I found myself praying for an answer and praying I had something visibly wrong with me. I got the same response every time, “Your test results came back normal.” After my 6th specialist said these words to me, I lost all hope and faith. I lost sight of getting better and I even lost sight of God and my religious ways. “If God was real, why was he putting me through this?” I thought to myself daily. I grew angry as my mom prayed on every ride to the doctor’s office. I never even stepped back to look at myself and see how truly lost I had become.

I went into my now 7th specialist, and they ordered yet another blood test. Throughout everything, I wanted to count how many times I was poked with a needle. I lost count after 37. My mom would always tell me that I would be okay because I had been poked and prodded so much already. The nurses would joke around with me saying that I had been poked so much that my veins were running out of blood. That statement made all of this a reality. I felt like I was watching myself being beaten up by these needles and machines from a different body. That night, I went home and cried. It finally became clear that, even though my tests results were normal, I was not normal, and neither was my pain. I couldn’t understand why I was being told, “It’s all in your head,” when it obviously wasn’t. I cried for myself, for my friends, my family, my doctors, and the complete strangers going through the same thing I was. I realized how badly I wanted my life back, and to live fully. I wanted to get out of my house and the hospital. I wanted my life back. I was ready.

The 8th, 9th, 10th specialists all thought the same thing, “It all looks normal.”  It was getting to the time where that statement didn’t mean anything to me anymore. All it was, was a bundle of words. No matter how many doctors told me those same words, there was no way I was believing them. I knew something was wrong, and I knew I needed help in ways other than medicine. I was already taking 8 pills every day, and nothing was helping me significantly, or even a little bit. I was stuck with all this medication that didn’t do anything but make me dizzy and nauseous. All my parents were doing day in and day out was contacting the hospital. Whether it was for medication refills, updates, or scheduling appointments, the phone line was always busy. After another Emergency room visit, we finally got in contact with my old doctor, who we had seen a few years back for my stomach pain. On the ride to my appointment with him, I dreamed about him finding something and getting rid of my pain altogether.

We finally got called back to the room he was in, and I grew scared and nervous. We talked, and I noticed how much he didn’t listen to me. He repeated, “I know what I’m doing, I’ve done this for 13 years.” He ordered a very scary procedure, where I would undergo anesthesia. I had been put under many times, but I had a bad feeling about this. The doctor began the procedure, and because my body wasn’t cleared fully for the test, they couldn’t finish it. My mom and I were so upset,  having known what we told this doctor was right, and we knew it wouldn’t work. I finally was able to be wheeled out of the doctor's office as I felt so nauseous and dizzy. I went home to rest and was upset I was to miss a very important dance practice. A few days after my test, the doctor we saw contacted us. He told my mother how I was lying and that he had never seen this in his entire career. He went on to tell my mom how horrible it was to put me into this procedure and risk my health. He was convinced that I was lying about all of my symptoms and knew he was right because he, “Had never been wrong.” After my mom explained his message to me, my hopelessness visited again. I couldn’t believe this doctor thought this of me. If the so-called best doctor couldn’t figure it out, who could?

After a while, I finally worked up the nerve to see another specialist. This was the most nervous I had ever been for a doctor’s appointment. To my surprise, they didn’t order another test, they actually referred me to another specialist who they thought could help more. We made an appointment with my 13th specialist. Thirteen is a lucky number, right? He listened to me and understood what I was saying. He immediately recommended the Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Clinic. We decided to look further into this clinic and what it would truly be doing for me and my family. After a lot of consideration, we decided it was worth a shot. Three weeks in return for my entire life back seemed like the deal of the century. Leading up to my first day, I was nervous. I started to catastrophize every little detail. “What if this won’t work? What if I’m the only one that doesn’t get their life back? What if I’m all alone in this process?” I started second-guessing myself and if I truly wanted to go through these three weeks or not. I wanted to stay at my house where I felt safe.

The first week of the PRC was the scariest of my life. I had already watched 2 important people graduate, and the thought of me doing that in 2 weeks seemed unrealistic. I wasn’t allowed to acknowledge my pain, whether it be talking or holding the area. Before that rule, I didn’t realize how much my pain took over my life. It was all I talked about, all I worried about, and thought about throughout every day. The second week went by fairly quickly and was the most difficult week of this entire program. My best friends graduated, I got 2 concussions, sprained my ankle, had heart problems and was challenged emotionally. I felt like the world was telling me to give up, but my stubborn self didn’t allow that. I realized that many things were against me and I needed to face battles in order to move past. After being faced with these hard challenges, I kept going and soon week 3 came.  I now had to try and cope with going right back to school.

We had a conference call between me, my nurse, and important people at my school. In the middle of the call, I realized this was it. I was better or getting there, and in 42 hours I was to be back at school. I would face reality and see everyone who I thought hated me. Nervous doesn’t even begin to describe it, but I was going home. No more hospital visits, no more crying in pain, no more acknowledging my pain. This was it.

I can now go back to my 11th specialist to say, “I told you so. I went the extra mile for myself, and I don’t need you anymore.” For the first time in my entire life, I could say I’m genuinely proud of myself. I had pushed through the hardest time in my life, and I made it through to the other side. After a  week or two of school, and after everything settled down, I could say I had found my genuine happiness again.