Life with PANS/PANDAS • The Dreaming Panda • Page 10

My Last Piece of Freedom

Published on April 20, 2015 by DreamingPanda1 Comment

Last summer, over the course of a few hours, I suddenly became unable to walk due to an autoimmune attack in my brain. If I tried to go from my living room to the kitchen, I fell multiple times because my legs would suddenly give out.

In one moment of insight during that horrendous time when I had not only lost the ability to walk but had essentially lost my mind, I said to myself, I’m going to run a marathon someday and overcome this. And I’m going to beat my best 5k time from eight years ago within the next year.

It was truly a crazy idea. Maybe I still wasn’t in my right mind when I came up with that…

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My First “Normal” Summer?

Published on April 15, 2015 by DreamingPanda4 Comments

This week, I have wonderful news… Instead of moving home for the summer like I’d planned, I’ve decided to remain at school to take classes and work.

While this may sound like a “normal” summer for an almost-20-year-old, for me, it’s a huge victory. Not too long ago, I hated everything and wanted nothing more than to go home and spend my summer lying on the couch or in bed (just like last summer). But now, I want to keep pursuing my dreams in this city—dreams that I’d pushed to the back burner for far too long because of my illness.

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What’s It Like to Survive a Flare?

Published on April 6, 2015 by DreamingPanda9 Comments

This week, I finally hit the post-IVIG flare that we were all dreading. Thanks to a six-day burst of high-dose Prednisone, I’ve come out of it now, but I hope I don’t have to go through that ever again. Unfortunately, I probably will.

Until my most recent IVIG, my flares were getting worse and worse. One night a few weeks ago, I found myself spacing out at the kitchen table for about two hours, unable to make myself get up, because I had too many OCD compulsions. When I realized I’d been doing nothing for two hours and thought about how hard it would be to do anything with the burden of OCD, I just lost it—I spent twenty minutes walking around my apartment screaming and hitting the walls.

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The Blame Game

Published on March 9, 2015 by DreamingPandaLeave a comment

After eight years of searching for a diagnosis and then finally discovering I had PANDAS, it wasn’t enough for my family and I to simply know what my illness was. We wanted to know what caused it and who or what could be responsible:

Why did I get sick? What could’ve been done so that this never would’ve happened?

We blamed the doctors for brushing me off for eight years. We blamed them for not being willing to consider thinking outside the box. We blamed them for giving me more and more diagnoses while never stepping back to consider a single cause for all of them—while we insisted there had to be one. Continue reading “The Blame Game” →

Losing My Mind… Halfway

Published on March 2, 2015 by DreamingPanda10 Comments

Lately, I’ve been having a harder and harder time with cognitive problems. I make stupid mistakes in school now that I’d never make in the past. I say the wrong words without knowing it. I mix up left and right as if I were six years old. I’m very forgetful. I do a lot of small but silly things everyday—little things that anyone might do once in a while but the fact that I do them so frequently makes me feel as if I’m losing my mind.

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Slamming the Door on OCD

Published on February 23, 2015 by DreamingPandaLeave a comment

It’s just a doorknob—just a little piece of metal attached to my door. For most people, it’s an overlooked necessity that doesn’t get a second thought. But for me, it’s a peril.

Until a few days ago, I’d gone the entire school year without ever touching my bathroom’s doorknob. I avoided this by either leaving the door cracked enough to let me use my feet to open the door, or I grabbed the doorknob with a designated washcloth that I kept nearby. Unfortunately, I often don’t touch any other doorknobs or handles of any kind in the rest of my apartment, either—not the refrigerator, not the microwave, not the cabinets, and not even the doorknob to my own bedroom.

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The Run of My Life

Published on February 16, 2015 by DreamingPanda7 Comments

Recently, I signed up to run in my first half-marathon. I was planning to cross the finish line this summer as the ultimate way to overcome PANDAS. I was hoping to be able to say, “Nine months ago, I couldn’t walk, but today, I’m totally healthy and symptom-free!”

But my plans have been ruined, and my dreams have been shattered.

When I underwent high-dose IVIG therapy in August, for the first time since I got sick eight years ago, I was hopeful about making a full recovery. I knew it could take up to a year for me to get completely better, but I didn’t mind. As long as I was getting better, no matter how slowly, I could keep hoping.

But then I stopped getting better.

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Falling Off

Published on February 2, 2015 by DreamingPanda3 Comments

Even though I love to decorate my room, when I moved into my apartment in August, I could only muster the willpower to put just a handful of small pictures on my bulletin board. During my Freshman year, I’d made my room look like “an Athenian palace,” as one friend put it—at least when I didn’t leave my trash strewn all over the floor (thanks, hoarding OCD).

My lack of decor last semester was an analog of my life. When I finally turned a corner in November, I covered most of my bulletin board with posters, postcards, pictures, and swag from my first 5k race. The better I’m doing, the more things are on the bulletin board.

A few weeks ago, pictures and papers started falling off, one-by-one. I didn’t put them back.

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Why Kids with PANDAS Are Brave

Published on January 26, 2015 by DreamingPanda2 Comments

Recently, I had the chance to meet with a family who had two kids with PANS. We had some great conversations, and I’ll probably write a whole other post about our meeting another time. But there was one exchange between me and the seven-year-old that I can’t stop thinking about:

Me: “You’re very brave.”
Little PANDA: “Why?”

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Am I Better Yet?

Published on January 19, 2015 by DreamingPanda7 Comments

Ever since I started treatment this summer, I’ve found myself constantly asking, “Am I better yet?”

When I got IVIG, I’d hoped maybe I would start getting better within a few weeks. Whenever I had a good day, I started to think I was getting better. But then the symptoms would come back, and I’d be disappointed. I’d been told it could take me up to a year to get back to 100%, but I hoped it would be sooner. Wouldn’t you?

Six months later, I’m still playing the am-I-better-yet game, and the answer is still no. Certainly, I’m “better” than I was in a lot of ways, but I’m nowhere near where I want to be. I was doing really well, but now that I’m finding out where I am with less of the anti-inflammatory and immunosuppresent qualities of the steroids, I really don’t like what I’m seeing.

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