So, Here's What Happened...

It was the week between Christmas and New Year's that I started feeling sick. I thought it was just a typical cold, you know, just the normal old sickness that goes away in a week or so. Except that it never did go away. I have been consistently ill since then...the entire year of 2006.

My symptoms presented as asthma/flu-like symptoms. Over the course of the next three months, my symptoms changed and progressed. I had difficulty breathing...my lungs actually hurt. Then, I started getting muscle spasms and twitches. I started experiencing fatigue, shortness of breath, and couldn't do even the simplest things. Walking up the stairs absolutely wore me out. The weird thing was, that I had never in my life experienced anything like that. Throughout all this, I went to 5 different doctors. They did blood tests and chest x-rays. They told me that all the back pain was probably because I bruised a rib or pulled a muscle from all the coughing. They gave me painkillers and muscle relaxers and told me to wait it out. So I did. At one point, my parents even flew me down to Houston to see my own doctor, who said the same thing, so I went back to school. With the meds, I started to feel a little better, but I knew I still wasn't 100%. About one week after I came back to Harding, the muscle and back pain got unbearable. I couldn't go to class, I could barely make it from the living room to my bedroom. My wonderful roommate took such good care of me. [I love you Amber!]

That very day I started experiencing chest pain. Yes, chest pain. My right arm and leg went numb. My fingers developed splinter hemorrhages within a day, and became increasingly painful. That's when I knew that I did not have asthma or a bruised rib and that I couldn't wait another minute. Whatever it was, was serious. My roomate skipped her classes to take me to another doctor. It was at this doctor office that I blanked out, for the first time in my life. I cannot remember what happened in the next two hours. My roomate said that I became extremely incoherent and couldn't remember where I was or why I was there. I have NEVER in my life not had complete control of my mind. That alone was a scary experience. I called my parents, who insisted that I fly home right away. My dad bought me a flight for early the next morning. Keep reading the posts for the "Airline Testimony".

Finally I made it home...the rest of the story to be continued later...