“Hashi-What?”

The biggest struggle in my life, at this moment, is trying to manage my autoimmune disease and be 20 at the same time.  The best way to explain this is to tell y’all a story about last semester. Basically, I thought I was invincible and could take on a “typical” heavy load like I’ve seen many other college students do before. I was taking 19 credit hours, working 19 hours a week, playing club volleyball and attempting to have a social life.  I had good days and I had really bad days. Days where I couldn’t manage to go to class or practice because of my mental state. Days where I didn’t move from the bathroom floor because I had gotten the flu. And multiple days where I didn’t leave my bed because I got bronchitis too many times to count.  This past summer I went home to find out my thyroid was struggling to keep up and my immune system was pretty defeated. Therefore, the doctor increased my medication dosage.  Two months later, I found myself having...

Let’s talk Diagnosis  My diagnosis experience... not so fun... When it takes three years for your doctor to come up with a conclusion, you probably need a new one. Not to say that doctor is particularly bad, but a new perspective might be nice.  It all started in seventh grade (it gets a little personal here) with the magnificent wonders of puberty. Puberty hit me with a nice grow spurt and maybe a little more maturity, but mainly just with some serious irregular menstrual cycles. Which btw irregular is normal! Although, losing worrisome amounts of blood, not so normal.  Then as I got a little bigger, the fatigue, pain and nausea got worse. My hair started falling out, my nails lost any and all strength, I was sick all the time and best of all I felt like I was losing my marbles!  The symptoms were common to many other illnesses, so I was tested for all those. Went through ultra sounds and blood draws. Even an exploratory surgery. Nothing had the ans...