the undiagnosed diagnosis, PART 1.

Morning love birds! I think it's time I dust off my keyboard and enlighten you on my life! It is my blog, isn't it?

I've had a lot of people praying for me lately and I do mean a lot.

I've been on a verrrrry, very long medical journey the last three months and though I'm extroverted in nature- I have a tendency to "hide" things from people out of fear. I fear people think I exaggerate. That I dramatize. That I seek attention. Due to this, I kept it all very private. I only shared with my immediate family and maybe one or two others my journey. However, there comes a point when I need to face my fears and do life with people. Let them pray for me, let them listen to me, let them love me.

Thanks to Janetha's blog (who is one of the most helpful and informative bloggers I've come across) she has inspired me to bring my journey to surface on this blog. I have an honest appreciation for blogs and website review writers because I find it helpful to hear from real people. I choose to be one of those people today.

If you have a weak stomach or don't want to know things about me that aren't glamorous then you should probably stop reading now :)

About 6 months ago, I started having severe abdominal pain.

This pain was happening specifically on the left side of my stomach. You could say it felt like "gas" pains, but at times it was much more severe. It would happen later in the afternoon, about the time I get to the gym. Ironically, every time I'd hop on the treadmill after work, my pain would hit me. I would usually just keep running (or lifting weights) but a lot of times I'd have to stop and go to the restroom to just bend over in pain.

True to my nature, I never stopped a workout. I would go on with my evening and just acknowledge that I just have really bad gas pains. Sometimes the longer I would run, the better I would feel, but since it started it was always an on-and-off type feeling. In addition to the sharp and aching pains, I stopped going to the bathroom as much (oh.my.gosh. I'm blushing) and began having lots of bloating after meals. It was just so wonderful.

After eliminating dairy completely (greek yogurt was pretty much the only dairy I was down to), the pain didn't subside. Next, I eliminated 100% soy. In case you don't know this, SOY IS IN EVERYTHING. Every packaged food, every sauce, EVERYTHING. It is an inexpensive filler in foods much like corn. In November, I basically when 100% clean and didn't touch anything in a box or package. Meat, fruit, vegetables, and whole grains were my life and cheats just didn't happen unless it was dairy-free and soy-free. I felt some temporary relief from the pain. That was only temporary.

I finally had enough and one day found an allergy doctor, just praying he was a decent man that would spend time listening to my problems. I was convinced I developed serious food allergies out of nowhere, I've never had an any sort of stomach problems in my life and have always been able to eat whatever, just choosing to not eat things for health reasons.

My prayers were answered. This doctor was exactly what I needed.

The appointment was in early January and by this point I had eliminated all dairy, all soy, and went 100% gluten free 3 days prior to the appointment. (Yes, I was still working out, but was mindful of the hours I put in and limited it to about an hour of circuit training a day). I was living off vegetables and meat.

The doctor was absolutely intrigued by my life. By my diet and exercise habits. By my appearance and by my issues. He sat down in the room with me and left one hour and forty-five minutes later. I've never had a doctor spend that much time with me as long as I've been alive. He asked me to lay down so he could feel my stomach. He began to feel around my entire stomach and then started to press really hard on me for a solid 5 minutes. I have a really high pain tolerance (to a fault, I ignore pain) and nearly almost cried as he dug and dug and dug into my left side. He told me he felt something.

"Put your hand right there, do you feel that?"

I did. I felt it. He said it was a mass of some sort. It was in the area of my small intestine. He took both hands and tried to move it up and down my intestine to get a better idea of what it was (i.e. stool, air bubble, etc.) and told me it felt like something that really needed to be seen right away. He took my blood for some lab work, then called his Gastro friend to share what he'd found. I was scheduled for an appointment with that doctor shortly thereafter.

After my blood work came back, the doctor found my blood sugar was 48. This is dangerously low, especially at 1pm in the afternoon one hour after eating a hearty meal of salmon, vegetables and a large salad. There was no reason why my glucose should be at 48. I found out I have something called Reactive Hypoglycemia where my blood sugar levels drop very low after I eat, no matter what it is. It is very different from the standard Hypoglycemia in that it only develops when there is something going wrong in the body (which can be a range of issues, anything from adrenal fatigue syndrome to a cancerous tumor).

Whew! I finally discovered one of my issues, my blood sugar. About the time my stomach pains evolved, so did the horrendous feelings of starving (all the time), bouts of alarmingly low energy every few hours, and feeling freezing ALL-THE-TIME. I was so miserable after each meal and I never caught on to that pattern.

I soon realized my conundrum.. So, I'm starving all the time, right? Well I need to eat. But when I eat, I lose all energy and focus and basically feel like I'm dying. OK, so I won't eat. But if I don't eat, then I get even LOWER blood sugar! What the heck am I supposed to do?

Step One: Give up every ounce of sugar. You would think in order to raise blood sugar, I'd need to consume more sugar..right? Very wrong. Sugar, caffeine and fructose are culprits in reactive hypoglycemia management. It's causes even more insulin resistance.

Step Two: Eliminate gluten. Check, did that. Apparently, gluten has a healing effect to more than just allergies. (Newbie to the GF world here!)

Step Three: Smaller meals. Shortly after I found this out about myself, I had brunch with my grandparents. We went to Mimi's Cafe (love that place) and I ordered a vegetable egg white omelet (my go-to breakfast EVERYWHERE) and I was so excited because I knew it'd be a good meal for my blood sugar. Boy, was I wrong. I stuffed myself and crashed so hard after the meal, I thought I needed to be taken to the ER. I was pale and nearly fainted multiple times for hours. I'm forced to practice portion control at all times.

So, the mass and my hypoglycemia, are they related?

That was the question of the century. I went to this new doctor now (I was sad to see the other one go) and was praying this doctor would be another genius. At our appointment, he sat me down in his office and said, "PLEASE...tell me what's going on. I spoke with Dr. McConnell and he's really worried about you." I began to tell my story. "Walk with me...I need to feel this mass." He put his hands on my left side and right away said, "There it is. Yep, let's get a cat scan and a colonoscopy right away."

Of course my first worry besides how much work I'd be missing (I had our biggest event of the year coming the next week) was how much of the gym I needed to miss. I really do love it there.

Two days later I was laying in the tube as I like to call it. They gave me barium which made my organs glow (cool!) and an iodine flush IV which was to date the weirdest sensation I've ever felt. Only those who've had it will understand.

I went to an OBGYN an hour after the Cat Scan to see if the mass was on my ovaries; I know cysts on ovaries are very common these days and I was instructed to have that ruled out . The results were negative and all was clear in gyno-world.

An hour after my scan my doctor called me from home and informed me the radiologist found what has been felt. I had an obstruction in my small intestine called Adult Intussusception. If you want to google it, go for it. It's all medical journals and pretty lengthy information. In a nutshell, the small intestine starts to act like a telescope and go inside of itself because of something pushing on it.

The take away from my conversation with the doctor was that Adult Intussusception is not to be taken lightly, needs to be fixed surgically as soon as I start vomiting (which I wasn't there yet), and is almost always caused by a lead point (a bigger issue going on).

the story doesn't stop there.
TO BE CONTINUED.