Tag: Advice

The Blame Game

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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” →

Why Kids with PANDAS Are Brave

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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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What I Learned from Losing My Wallet

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Recently, I had the misfortune of losing my wallet. Anyone would be upset and worried about losing something that contained your credit and ATM cards, driver’s license, school ID, cash, car keys, and apartment keys. But I had another concern: as soon as you open my wallet, you can see a medical information card that gives away all kinds of personal health information.

If I were ever in an accident or had another emergency, it’s a good thing that this information is so easily accessible. But in this case, I couldn’t help but wonder who was going to read it. There’s no way whoever found my wallet wouldn’t see it. I had managed to keep my illness a complete secret from everyone but my close friends and professors, because I didn’t want to be treated differently. Would this be the day that everyone found out?

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How Do I Stay Positive?

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When I look back at the last few months and think about everything I’ve been through, I’m often surprised by my own resilience. What keeps me going? Why do I not give up? And I think to myself, “How in the world do I stay so positive?”

The answer? I don’t.

In our society, there’s a faulty idea that being strong and tough means holding in all emotions except the pleasant ones. We salute the people who go through terrible things and still smile and look on the bright side at the end of it all. We are forever being told that as long as we can be optimistic about life and stay positive, we’ll get through whatever comes our way. Although no one ever says so, to me it often seems like crying and grieving and expressing pain is frowned upon. Everything will be okay. Just be positive!

Continue reading “How Do I Stay Positive?” →

What I Wish I’d Told My Parents

Published on by DreamingPanda5 Comments

This time of the year is always difficult for me. Seven years ago at this time, I had the worst PANDAS flare of my life and descended into a terrifying world of OCD, odd behavior, insomnia, and depression. For a time, my symptoms completely tore apart my family.

I’ll never forget when I first made my parents cry. I was twelve years old, and we didn’t even know I had OCD, let alone PANS.  Had we known, things never would have gotten so bad.  My parents were almost as terrified as I was at the change they had seen in me.

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Image of sink representing that Pure-O OCD goes beyond hand-washing and other OCD stereotypes.

I Had OCD for 6 Years… And Didn’t Know

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This week has been OCD Awareness week. Up to this point, I haven’t discussed my OCD very much, but I think it’s time to change that. An overnight onset of OCD is the hallmark symptom of PANDAS/PANS—which I had almost eight years ago.

For six years, I concealed from my parents and psychologists the torturous obsessions that ran through my mind because I was so afraid of and ashamed of them. Continue reading “I Had OCD for 6 Years… And Didn’t Know” →

PANDAS Goes to College

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This week, I’m heading back to college. Is that crazy? Probably, but I’m going to try.

As it is, my main PANDAS symptoms are choreiform movements/tics, physical and mental fatigue, hand tremors, a bit of OCD, and general anxiety. But I have my mind back. My mood is stable, I feel like myself, and I don’t fall asleep every time I sit down for more than ten minutes. I’m a functional human being again.

But the problem is that I have to be more than “functional” to get through college. I’m studying in one of my school’s most demanding programs. If trying to read a chapter of my textbook right now for an online class makes me have to lie down and rest for two hours afterwards, how can I get through a week of classes?

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Battle Scars

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One day of meds/supplements...
One day of meds/supplements…

For much of the summer, my illness was completely invisible, but lately, with one look at me, you know something is going on. If I try to walk around normally, my chorea often makes me look like I’m being electrocuted or like I’m doing some weird dance—but it’s completely involuntary. I have horrible acne from one of my medications. I’ve started to develop a puffy “Prednisone face.” My arm is covered in strange bruises from IVIG and all the blood work I’ve had to get.

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A Day in the Life of Recovery

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The strange thing about my condition is how suddenly it changed everything about me and my daily experience. Four months ago, though I was sick, you wouldn’t have known it—unless you happened to notice me nodding off in class, day after day, after consistent eight or nine-hour nights of sleep—or if you noticed the ever-increasing amount of dents in my car from suddenly not being able to tell where the edges of my car were. But now, with one look at me trying to walk across a room, it’s extremely obvious that something is going in my brain that I have no control over. Welcome to my new world of PANDAS.

One of the hardest things about recovery is learning to be honest with yourself by being willing to admit how hard everything still is. It’s often difficult for me to explain to my friends and family just how challenging each day can be, so I decided that instead of explaining, I would tell you about what it takes to get through a typical day…

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“You’re Just Tired”

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So I tried Xyrem for a week, and I did sleep like a baby. It was actually wonderful—I would wake up in the morning feeling completely rested and not feeling like I needed twenty more hours of sleep. I hadn’t felt that way for eight years. But it upset my stomach so badly that I lost even more weight because I was unable to eat anything. I’m down to a hundred pounds. I was around 111 before this summer…

My doctor is just plain flummoxed by my strange reactions to meds, so he made me stop everything over the weekend—even my anti-depressant. As would be expected, I felt horrible in every way. But one of the worst parts was what someone said to me about how I would be off my meds: Continue reading ““You’re Just Tired”” →