Take for a moment to sit and reflect. Think about a time when the doctors were confused about an illness or symptom you had.
For many of us with MITO, we go through this everyday. Doctors are baffled by the symptoms, since some do not meet the textbook criteria for any particular disease. We spend our time explaining the validity of concern, sometimes they walk away in disbelief. As one doctor told me, "You feel the symptoms are very real to you. I see people all the time who think their symptoms are real, but in essence it is just their imagination..."
In my case, I went years without knowing the true identity of my illness. Shuffling back and forth across a multitude of doctors, who tried to diagnose a few symptoms. A few doctors had agreed that they felt I had a case of multiple sclerosis, but when spinal taps and other tests came back, they shrugged their shoulders. "We just don't know. Sorry."
I sit and ponder of the hours spent driving to and from facilities, only to be turned down again. More than a handful of doctors tried to convince me that I needed to be counseled, since there was no possible way anyone could have everything that I described. Had I believed them, I might have never truly known the name of my illness.
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