With PANDAS, it’s astonishing how much can change in one day. Last June, I developed a tic disorder and became unable to walk in just a few hours. I’ve spent the year that followed fighting to get my life back. One day this week, I flared again, and it’s already had astonishing repercussions…

After a week on Wellbutrin, I was starting to feel the closest to normal that I’ve felt in two years. It was like the summer before I went off to college—I had some OCD and anxiety but was mostly functional and otherwise healthy. Unfortunately, after five days of feeling great last week, I slowly fell back into depression. Then, I got a sore throat, a headache, and a cough.

A few days later, I lost it.

That night, I sat down in a recliner and cried for no apparent reason. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I ended up in the kitchen. I looked at the door to the street and thought to myself, I need to run.

I was too exhausted to actually leave, so instead, I slammed myself into a wall on purpose.

I didn’t actually want to hurt myself—I just felt like I needed to do it but didn’t know why. I think when a lot of PANDAs have flares, we’re not in control of anything we think or do anymore. It’s like an outside force comes and takes over. It’s my theory that our fight-or-flight instinct (controlled by the basal ganglia that’s irritated by our bad antibodies) goes totally haywire, telling us that we have to “fight” by doing strange actions.

During flares, I feel I either have to slam myself into a wall or run out of the house; this is my messed up version of “fight-or-flight,” but the only real danger is the malfunctioning instinct itself.

Thankfully, I realized what was happening, and I made myself go to the basement to tell my parents. At this point, I was sobbing and feeling utterly hopeless. A few minutes later, I began jerking violently. My movements were suddenly the worst they’d been in months.

The next morning, we spoke to my neurologist, and that’s when I got the news:

“You need to get your tonsils and adenoids removed. There might be strep or another infection hiding in there.”

It’s not typical for someone whose had two IVIGs to continue to flare every two or three weeks like I do. I’ve been tested for all kinds of viruses and infections, and they’ve all been negative. Apparently, you can have something hiding in your tonsils and not have it show up in blood work. If I do have strep or another infection or virus in my tonsils, it makes sense that I’m having flares so regularly. Unfortunately, the only way to find out if the tonsils are the problem is to remove them.

At this point, I don’t much care what it takes to stop this disease. If surgery will do it, then fine. I’ve been warned that it could be very painful to have a tonsillectomy as a twenty-year-old, but you know what? I’ve been through so much worse. I’m not afraid of the pain.

But sadly, having surgery this summer means I might not graduate college on-time. I was counting on taking online classes from home to make up for the reduced load I took last year. How could I do research and write twenty-page papers on narcotics?

I thought about forgoing the surgery and continuing to force myself through my four-year plan, but I don’t want to anymore. Although I’ve made straight-A’s and won scholarships for outstanding work in the midst of everything, I’ve been miserable in the process. I want to thrive, not just academically, but as a whole person. I decided that it’s better to give myself a shot at getting better by having surgery and taking an extra semester to finish college.

Yet again, so much has changed in just one day, because taking an extra semester means delaying graduate school by an entire year—that’s a whole year I’ll have to figure out what to do with myself at home (maybe that’s when I’ll write my book!). It’s a lot to process, and I’d be lying if I said I was completely okay with it right now. But still, if taking my time with school and getting my tonsils out is what it takes to get me better, it’s a fair trade…