I lived through the surgery and the bulk of the recovery. Go me.

The trouble is that once again, just like last time, my immune system decided to jump ship rather than stay and attempt to bail out. In other words. . .I kinda passed out at my checkup. This did not make my surgeon happy. Indeed, it displeased him so much that he DEMANDED in the way only a thirty year old Asian man who discusses the past weekend’s fights with the orderly during pre-op can demand, that I be seen in the regular clinic TODAY. As in NOW. As in I WILL CALL THEM AND THOU SHALT BE SEEN. And then he threatened to NEVER TREAT ME AGAIN unless I had this underlying condition dealt with. I think that was supposed to be a threat- but uhh- I don’t really want any more oral surgeries, even though I am quite pleased with my gum-slashing surgeon. At any rate, at his urging, and with the advice that Chris supervise these visits so he could yell at anyone not doing a good job, I got seen. Again. For the same symptoms they have glossed over for the past few years.

You see, any time I’m under any stress (physical or emotional) I become exceptionally weak. I get lightheaded. I pass out. It’s not pretty. The original theory was that these were anxiety attacks. Now, while I will admit to having anxiety issues, you’ve got to question the diagnosis when you’ve been pumped full of every happy pill on the planet, and you are still having all of the same physical symptoms, even though you are much less irritable and annoyed with the aforementioned fainting spells since they’ve drugged 95% of the negativity right out of you. You are willing to laugh about the fact that you just passed out and hit your head on a linoleum floor, because, isn’t it like so funny that this is ALL IN MY HEAD?

After my last surgery they became convinced that we were dealing with hypoglycemia, so they sent me home with a blood sugar monitor so I could check things out. While my blood sugar is consistently low, it doesn’t qualify as true hypoglycemia, so there went another excellent hypothesis. I will admit that seeing Jonas’ utter horror at the barbarism that is DRAWING BLOOD FROM YOUR OWN FLESH gave me a laugh. You have no idea, son.

Now, after seeing another doctor (because in the military you never see the same doctor twice- which could explain why it takes years to get a simple diagnosis), we are testing aspects of my endocrine system. So far this has involved many, many vials of blood being drawn, all of which could not be managed in just one stick, so I no longer have veins in my arms, hands or wrists because they’ve all exploded into black and blue “beauty marks” the size of silver dollars.

The favorite theory defining what the heck is wrong with me is Addsion’s disease, which is basically a cortisol deficiency. Cortisol is the body’s “stress hormone”. It is what revs you up enough to handle things like infections and surgeries and emotional trauma. It increases blood pressure, blood sugar and immunosupressive response. In other words- without enough cortisol, a body has a really hard time getting back to normal after stress. And since I’m the Queen of All Things Stressful these days, frankly, this hypothesis makes a lot of sense. I’m sure one of the 72 pints of blood they needed to test every hormone producing gland in my body will shed some light as to whether or not this is an accurate theory. I’d like to think there’s a three strikes rule in diagnostics, but knowing my luck this could go on forever, because no one will ever find the truth: That I’ve been body snatched by an octogenarian who is now enjoying the thrills of youth while I hobble around feeling like death.