03 | June | 2009 | Elizabeth Barone

At the risk of grossing someone out, I’ve compiled a list of all of my symptoms. This is more for my reference than anything else, so that if I’m out and forget my yellow notebook I can just go to this page with my BlackBerry. I guess I’m also kind of hoping that someone will see this and go, “I know what’s wrong with you!” Sad, but true.

If you’re interested, I’ve documented everything from the beginning to now over at Scars Can Speak:

Arms, Hands, and Fingers

Dull and achy to sharp pain in arms, hands, and fingers
Jello, rubbery feeling in arms — It’s as if I’ve just spent the last hour working out or something
Weakness in arms and hands — I sometimes have difficulty opening bottles, jars, etc.
Numbness — This whole mess started when my left arm went numb from the elbow down
Swelling — My left hand will occasionally swell at the base of my thumb and the side opposite to my thumb. My thumb is always sore and stiff when this happens.
Itchy, sometimes painful, clear bumps — These appear on my palms and on my fingers. They usually take care of themselves after a few days, but they’re a real pain in the ass. They appear on my right hand more often than the left and they’re nearly as hard as a callous.

Legs, Feet, and Toes

Dull and achy to sharp pain in legs, feet, and toes — Occurs more often in my feet and toes, but occasionally occurs on the inside of my thighs.
Achy joint pain in my knees and hip — Occurs mostly on the right side

Other

Recurring styes — Usually multiple at any given time, in both eyes. I’ve never had this problem until a few months ago. Lately I can’t seem to get rid of them. Note: I rarely wear makeup.
Hemorrhoids and constipation — Again, something recent that I’ve never had a problem with. This scares me more than anything else; the fact that something that doesn’t normally bleed is indeed bleeding scares the fucking hell out of me
UTI-like symptoms — Every time I get a urinalysis for this, it comes back fine. And yet, every so often, I won’t be able to pee. I’ll pee a little and then feel like I have to pee again several minutes later. And the pain, when this happens? Unimaginable. There have been times where I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital.
Eczema — This started a few years ago. I get little patches of very dry, bumpy, almost scaly skin that don’t go away no matter how much lotion I use. Then, all on their own, they disappear. I don’t know if this is related or not, but hey.

My aunt says that all of these symptoms are because my body is eating itself, that they are signs of an autoimmune disease. She has Crohn’s Disease and rheumatoid arthritis. I’m not sure if I’ve been tested for Crohn’s, but I have been for rheumatoid arthritis several times and it’s always negative. Autoimmune diseases do run in my family, though, so it’s definitely a possibility.

There is probably more that I am not thinking of right now, but this is the gist of it. I don’t mean to gross anyone out. Believe me, I used to never like discussing my bowels with other people. But at this point? I’m all out of ideas. I’ll take any suggestions I can get.

Besides, you can’t tell me that you didn’t want to know all of these icky things! You know you did!

House sitting for my aunt was PARADISE, I tell you. I went from living with a whole mess of family to, well, just me. I didn’t even have to worry about the cat (although I did really miss her and I think she actually missed me, too). I had three bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, office, and bedroom, as opposed to one bathroom, two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room (AKA my room; that’s another post for another day), and the living room. I always had hot water, never had to wait to take a shower, and a fridge that produced ice and water.

I also had an intruder.

As I dried off after taking a nice hot (bubble!) bath in my aunt’s Whirlpool tub, I heard a sound downstairs. Suddenly, being alone didn’t appeal to me too much. “Who’s there?” I said, feeling a little silly. It was probably just the house settling. Quit being a baby, I told myself. There’s no one here.

I got dressed and turned the water on to brush my teeth. A sound erupted, something between the sound of a vacuum cleaner and a tornado. It split the sound barrier in half, so if I screamed I never heard it. I ran into the hall, in the direction where the sound came from. Immediately I realized that it was coming from Katarina‘s bathroom and ran right in. I don’t know what ran through my head, or what I expected to find or what I thought I would do when I found it.

If the whirring, mind splitting tornado sounded loud in the master bedroom, it was World War II in LA in the bathroom. I peered into the tub and read one word on the digital display: DRY.

The tub was drying itself.

A self-drying tub had given me a heart attack and had almost prompted me to call my dad. I can just imagine the conversation we would have had:

“There’s an air raid alarm going off in the house! I don’t know where my uncle keeps his ammo! Come get me!”

He would have arrived to find me huddled under the bed with a walkie-talkie clutched in my hand. Or my stuffed penguin.

Elizabeth Barone

Sarcasm, Creative Marketing, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Creative Writing

Daily Archives: June 3, 2009

All the things you didn't want to hear

The house sitting post