Invisible Illnesses and The Fat Bottomed Girl

I mentioned in my last post that I have Major Depressive Disorder, and that the health and fitness industry obsession with weight loss really got in the way of me getting a diagnosis and treatment.  That's not the only challenge I'm facing with this journey into crazy cycling time.

When I was 16, I became rather ill.  I was in pain all the time, suffered from malaise, ran a low grade fever more often than not, my joints hurt, it hurt to move, and it generally made me pretty cranky.  My doc could not figure out what was wrong with me.  A few months before I turned 17, I moved to Germany, in spite of this weird-assed mystery illness.  I saw a doc in Germany, she ordered some scans and blood work...and I learned that my mystery illness was no mystery at all.  I had RA - rheumatoid arthritis - and unlike most so afflicted, mine had manifested very early.  I'm also serum negative, which is what made it so hard for the docs to figure it out to begin with, and who thinks "arthritis" with a 17 year-old, anyway?

I'm fortunate, in that I seem to be only mildly afflicted.  I have long periods of happy remission, punctuated by the occasional nasty flare, and several less nasty (but still inconvenient) flares.  Diet, exercise, supplements, and avoiding my triggers (extreme cold, extreme heat, exhaustion) have done wonders for me!  I have to be careful with my exercise, though, keeping things as low impact as possible, something I cheerfully ignored as a teenager, but dare not do now.

I have SAD, and have for...well, forever.  This, it turns out, is one of the things that tipped my new doc off about the MDD!  I have dysmenorrhea.  Or, I did, until a prior doc put me on the Pill.  (Screw you, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum, and all the rest of you assholes talking about aspirin and knees.)  I have hereditary hypertension, and it's well controlled with LoTrel.

For nearly 20 years, I suffered from insomnia.  It was not unusual for me to be up till all hours, I saw the sun rise at least 4 times a week.  And I was crabby, ill tempered, and wanted to set people on fire a lot.  During this time, I put on weight.  A LOT of weight.  That weight in the previous post?  Add 95 pounds to it, and that's where I was before I took up bellydance.  But once those pounds came off, I stopped losing weight.  Restricted calorie diet?  More exercise?  More veggies, less meat, no fat?  Yeah, no.  The scale didn't budge, and my attitude just got worse.

I complained to doctor after doctor.  I feel like hell, I can't sleep, I want to set my neighbors on fire.  Doctor after doctor told me "Well, if you weren't so fat, you'd feel better."  I ended up firing the last doctor who said that to me in a blaze of profanity so hot, it took him three days to put his hair out.

Then I got a new doc.  He listened intently, scribbled a few notes, then asked me if I was suicidal.  No, I told him.  I'm homicidal!  I'm broken!  A few more notes, a few more questions, and then..."Sweetheart, you're not broken.  You're depressed."  (Yes, doc called me sweetheart.  Yes, it's OK.  He's an old family friend.)

He ordered some blood tests, put me on Lexapro, and told me to come back in three weeks.  I wasn't losing weight because I wasn't sleeping, he said, but he also suspected something else.

Lexapro?  Best thing ever, in spite of the nausea, vertigo, and general feeling of abject stupidity.  I take it at night, and sleep through all that, though, and my days are so much better!  If any single one of my doctors prior had just done me the simple courtesy of listening without judging, paying attention, and actually giving a damn, I would have been put on it sooner and had a lot less stress and fuss.

Three weeks later, the Lex was working, I was sleeping, and the blood tests were in.  My insulin receptors were essentially asleep.  "Metabolic Syndrome", some docs call it, because it sounds less alarming that Insulin Resistant or Pre-Diabetic.

Oh.  Well.  That explained a lot.  And now I'm taking a supplement to combat that, too, and I've never felt better in my entire life.

So.  There you have it.  There's why I'm not just doing this thing, but blogging about it to help me stay motivated.  I have a million reasons for doing this ride, and only some of them have to do with raising funds for the MS Society.  A lot of them have to do with just showing myself that yes, I can so do it, and I'm not going to let my medical issues hold me back.

I might be a hot mess, but I'm a much happier hot mess than I used to be, and one that's going to climb up into that bike saddle, go 100 miles, and give my illnesses the finger when I'm done.

Because I'm just that mean!


--Missy, the Fat Bottomed Girl