Unwelcome New Chapter

I'm at the very scary, but not unimaginable point of wondering if this is EVER going to end.
The stomach pain is my constant companion. I have been taking the medicine for 11 days now, and there hasn't been much, if any change in the pain level. If I'm standing or walking around, I'm in pain, and it's a lot. I can't take it. I need to get off my feet for the pain to let up. Sitting helps, lying down helps more. I am rapidly losing strength because of this. My morale is in the dumps. I'm incredibly tired all the time. I wonder if this is it for my quality of life. This is where we've come. If that's the case, man, I'm not sure I want to be around to see it. I can't stand it any more. Sick is no life. I've seen enough. I've seen more than enough.

Yesterday I went to the specialist who Rav Fisher recommended to me. His name is Professor Fich, and he's the head of gastroenterology at Soroka hospital here in Be'er Sheva, where I live. He came highly recommend. I didn't actually have very high expectations, just because I already had a diagnosis, and had been through all the heavy tests, so I didn't expect much else for him to come up with. But I went anyway because I am still in strong pain, and it's really not getting much better. I am hoping I just have to keep being more patient, and this is a slow healing problem.

Anyway, professor Fich was quite respectful of the fact that I am in tremendous pain; not something to be taken for granted. Many doctors do not respect the patients pain, especially a woman's, and especially if it seems inordinate with the diagnosis staring at them in front of their eyes. He had my paperwork in front of him from my recent tests and whatnot. We talked, he examined me. He said that I have had all the tests, there are no other tests to send me for, but what he promised to do is to take on my case. That was a big deal, in my eyes. He is going to start by looking over my CT himself, with his own radiologist expert, and see if anything was missed. He instructed me to get back in touch with him on Sunday, he'll have had enough time to look over my tests by then, and if he has anything to tell me he'll know by then. I'm not expecting anything, honestly, but you never know. I think that for whatever reason ulcerative duodenitis in me is extremely painful, and it's going to be a slower healing process, and that's just how it is, and I have to just deal with it. In a way having the doctor find something else woulnd't be so great, unless it is something simple and heal-able.

This pain, though, it feels like the middle of my body is dying. I don't know how else to describe it. I don't even know what that feels like, although technically that very thing has happened to the middle of my body before, but I was in a coma, so I didn't actually feel it as it happened. Well, that's not fully true, I was in horrific pain when I had NF, but it was like an entire body pain, because, well, I was actually dying. OK, we won't go there. I know though that when I had NF I could barely move anything at all without tremendous pain all over my body. This, now, it's all belly. But wow, what belly pain it is.

And such tremendous fatigue. I feel like I need to sleep all the time, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I see someone with deep dark circles all around her eyes. I don't understand what is happening to me. I look so unwell.

I have a feeling that this chapter in my life is a very big one, and is a turning point, and not for the better. I want to be wrong about that. I want this all to heal and for me to get my energy back, and return to life as I knew it before this episode. I used to want life to return as it was before NF. Now I will be happy just to have the energy levels- and even pain levels- I had before this stomach episode (which is now about six or seven weeks). I just somehow feel that this is a big turning point, and not a good one. I fear in my inner most fears that this almost unlivable pain is my new normal. God Forbid. I have nearly dropped out of outside life, and cannot be present for most of life's joys. This is no way to live life. Please God let me heal from this. I cannot live this way. Not with pain, please God, not with this pain.

(I am doing a combination of Homeopathy, naturapathy, and Western medicine to help myself heal. You need not make suggestions. Thank you.)

Sarah Rachel Bat Tova