The Power of Control

I woke up, got dressed and was ready to seize the day. Today would be the day that a doctor, after 17 years of waiting and searching, would tell me what was wrong. I drove into the parking deck, walked through the busy hospital building, filled with patients, family worrying about their ill loved ones, and staff tired of being surrounded by individuals that could never be polite.

She stood there, the door cracked slightly open, and read my name is an awful accent off my chart. I stood up, grabbed my bag and notebook and off I went to sit on yet another exam table. I sat there, staring at the white walls and medical posters, reading all about the new research programs the hospital needed volunteers for and just waited.

He walked in and went through the same routine I have done thousands of times before. I explained my medical history, my symptoms, my attempts to cure myself. He couldn’t explain the cause of the pain, but rather just acknowledged that I have pain and told me to be positive because at least I lead a normal active lifestyle. I felt defeated just as I had been for 17 years. As if there was not way for me to hold the power of control against nature and my body, but rather was just a victim the genes I was given.

He walked to me another room. Perhaps this room will read my symptoms differently and find that cause, find that little bit of information that would allow me to hold the power card against anture. I sat down, cracked a few jokes with the young gentleman holding the needle that would pull another 15 tubes of blood. He was probably the same age as me, working hard and living a normal life. As I watched the blood fill each tube I hoped that maybe he had some type of magical power that would pull information out of me and place it into one of these tubes so I could finally have the answer, the cause, so that I could work on the solution.

I returned to the exam table a week later. The doctor walked in, closed the door, sat down and just stared at my chart in search of the right words. His face filled with concern, a look I have never seen on a doctor’s face before. A week prior he seemed so confident, and now it was as if I was looking at a defeated 3rd grader losing the championship game of the baseball season.

I just stared at him, waiting for him to say something, wanting to just pull the chart out of his hands and read it myself though I was sure it would make no sense. I hoped for a cause for so many years and now it might here and I was terrified.

“Your blood work threw me for a loop. I was expecting nothing to be wrong, and it turns out you have signs of Lupus.”

I guess those were as right of words as he could find.

I sat there in shellshock, not sure what "signs of Lupus" meant, what it meant to me now or my future. He understood my confusion, probably because he was just as confused as I was in that moment. I did not look anything like the posterchild for such a diagnosis, as I was white, 26, active with clear skin. Our confusion together brought us to both understanding what those 15 tubes of blood translated into a 3 page document filled with acronyms and numbers that spelled out some code revealing answers that would allow me to finally hold the power card against nature.

He walked out, and for a moment I was alone with the diagnosis. I held my blood work results in my hand and while I knew what it all meant in the medical explanation, I had no idea how this information would change my life from this moment forward. This fear of the unknown took over my entire body. I walked to my car in a daze, unsure of what words to use to explain this to family and friends.

I sat in my car parked on the roof and just listened to the rain hitting my car. With each drop of rain, a drop of hope that now I could treat myself properly, a drop of fear that I couldn’t ignore my pain and assume it was just paranoia, a drop of courage that I would take control of the pain that has debilitated me and my relationships with those I love for 17 years. I began to cry as each emotion took over.

It is now a year later. I have spent this year learning how to take each drop of fear, hope and courage and use it to focus on me, my health and most importantly, my future. I have learned what creates my pain, what prevents it, and accepted that sometimes the pain will just be there no matter what.

Us as humans have have the ability to hold the wild card, to know and act on changing the situation we are in by taking action. I entered a world where I no longer wondered what was wrong, would worry about what might be. I finally held my wild card of life and would move forward with my personal Power of Control for my own destiny.