Before I tell you I need to let you know about the events leading up to my one event that started the downward spiral that is my non-existent health.
I've always been sick. I had tubes in my ears at 10 months old because I was one solid ear infection from birth. I had strep throat more times than I can remember including 6 times in the winter of '99. It was my own personal Y2K. I always got stomach bugs. Always got colds. My immune system seems to have left in utero never to return. Until a mid-September day in 2002. I had got home from school and spent my usual 30 minutes in the bathroom. But when I was done I was greeted by something rather alarming in the toilet (here comes the gross bit). And there staring back at me was a whole lot of blood. I panicked and the very next day I made a doctor's appointment. When there he hummed and hawed about what to do. I had been complaining to him for years and years about some very vague symptoms; diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, fatigue. But this was the last straw. He ordered a butt load(pun totally intended) of blood tests and decided to send me onto a gastroenterologist for a colonoscopy. Well being 12 years old the sound of a person putting a tube up your arse sounded horribly painful and incredibly embarrassing. So I did the blood tests (rather begrudgingly as most 12 year olds hate needles. If only I had known the pokes to come!) and when the doctor never called to say that they contained anything terrible or life threatening I let the colonoscopy go unperformed.
This is my biggest health regret to date.
I wish I had followed up with a specialist appointment and a colonoscopy when I was 12. I'm sure I wouldn't be as sick or have suffered as much since then if I had. I would have felt better. I would have had a better quality of life. I would have done better in school. I wish this most of all. But that was then and this is now. And I am thankful for every breath I get to take as of being diagnosed two years ago.
:)
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