I've never been what you might call healthy, throughout school it seems I spent more time at home than actually at school, and while sometimes I was guilty of over exaggerating my symptoms to get the day off, truth is, my body and I have had an on again off again type friendship. It truly was a miracle when at 21 I passed the necessary health checks required to serve a mission for my church. (In fact that is another whole epic in itself but I digress)
Serving a mission was always a dream of mine and honestly the only one I saw coming true, so you can understand just how ecstatic I was that my body was cooperating. Well, so I thought...
Three months into my mission I had a terrible pain in my lower abdomen, and doctors found a lovely 5cm cyst on my right ovary. I thought that was painful enough, but a few days later when it burst, I knew what pain really was. And it all goes downhill from here.
The toxins in that cyst spread through my body infecting everything it touched. I suffered illness after illness with barely a days break between. Anyone who is aware of the demands of a Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) Mission will understand just how demoralising it is missing a day of that uplifting work, and my sicknesses weren't just affecting me, but also the missionaries around me. I spent nearly half of my time in Japan, lying on a futon, not much use to anyone.
At this time I received some really beautiful blessings from the Elders I served with, blessing my body to overcome its ailments, that I would once again be able to do my Heavenly Father's work. That's why when it was decided that I needed to return to Australia to receive medical attention, I was devastated. Not only did I feel like I wasn't worthy of God's miracles, but the biggest dream of my life was over far too quickly. I remember walking out of customs barely able to see through my tears and I don't think I've really ever stopped crying.
The next months to a year were hard as I struggled mind, body, and spirit through trials I never saw coming. I went to doctor after doctor trying to find answers to my health conundrum but I'll talk more about that later, right now I want to focus on my most recent medical encounter.
So introduction over, I woke up early Saturday morning (I mean 5am early which for me is highly unbelievable) with a remarkably painful ache in my abdomen. Anyone aware of my usual symptoms will tell you this happens quite a lot, however this pain was localised to the upper right hand side of my abdomen, which isn't so usual. I tried to deal with it, but by 10am I couldn't take anymore. I went to my local doctor who seemed concerned, more concerned than I was, I though it might have just been wind pain.
That cyst that I talked about comes back into play now, I have a condition called PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) which kind of means I have a lot of cysts on my ovaries that cause me pain. Now I'll admit; I don't know a lot about it, but when I told my doctor about it she seemed worried that my pain might be caused by my gallbladder, because apparently they are connected, but like I said I really don't know. Any way she told me to wait 24 hours and if the nausea and pain hadn't turned into Gastro, I needed to get myself to an Emergency Room.
And that's the advice I'm going to give you, bear with me a day, and I'll have more on this tale tomorrow...SPOILER ALERT: I ended up in the Emergency Room.
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