Briana Pereira                                                                                                              2/10/16

ENG101                                                        Life’s Too Short

 

It started about a year and a half ago. The beginning of my senior year. My alarm clock would ring every morning at 6:30 a.m. for me to get up, get ready, and go to school. At 7:15 I would leave my house to be at Durfee for 7:45. I would go to the locker room in the morning, drop off my things for practice, and talk to my friends until the last bell would ring. For me senior year was about my friends, sports, and socializing. I didn’t really pay much attention to school work. As the year went on, things started to change for me. I started feeling really tired and fatigued. I figured hey, I stay up pretty late every night that’s probably why. Two of my instructors, who are practically second mothers to me, noticed a change I could not see myself. I was beginning to get a little lazy, if you will, and checked out.

Senioritis was hitting me bad! Once volleyball season was done, I went to the gym everyday. I couldn’t play basketball anymore due to an injury, that really devastated me. I would work out six days a week to continue to stay active and train for tennis season. By Christmas I was skipping the gym most days and going home and sleeping. This was really rare because I hated napping and second I would never skip the gym. My alarm clock would ring at 6:30 a.m. and I would snooze it. I just couldn’t physically get up. 6:30 turned into 8, going to school late, and being sluggish all day was the new Bri. I was always getting yelled at by my teachers for having my head down. Mrs. G, one of my “second moms,” really noticed the change the most and was really concerned.

I decided to go see my pediatrician, maybe something was wrong who knows. “It’s nothing, just bad sleeping habits.” I knew it! I just needed to go to bed sooner and shut my t.v. off at 10 instead of 12,1,and sometimes even 2. Even when I went to bed sooner I still couldn’t get up on time and get ready. This was starting to get weird to me. I had turned 18 and just switched over to a “real doctor.” After going over my symptoms, my doctor decided to go ahead with some blood work since my pediatrician didn’t want to.

Senior prom, the best day of your life, or what was supposed to be. The beginning of the night I got a phone call with the results of my blood work. My calcium levels were really high. Hypercalcemia, which is too much calcium in the blood, causes toxins and is very dangerous. I simply went on with my night, had fun, and didn’t worry much about it. When I met with my doctor, she didn’t know exactly what was going on but knew it had to do with the endocrine system. She referred me to an endocrinologist named Dr. Anderson, a.k.a. an angel from God.

My symptoms continued to get worse and progress to other         things. Very sharp kidney pain that felt like a knife stabbing me repeatedly, cognitive disfunction, heart palpitations that made me feel like my heart was about to come out of my throat, stomach pain that I couldn’t eat more than a few bites. I was put on heart monitors and blood work was drawn almost twice a week. By this time I hadn’t even seen the gym in months. Tennis season was right around the corner and I couldn’t even walk for longer than 15 minutes never mind run around.

This process went on for a while. Multiple test were being done almost every week. I was drained. I was sick of doctors, sick of blood work, sick of everything basically. I decided to pay a visit to Mrs.G during a summer program they had at school. We started talking about what was going on and I decided to do my own research. So, I googled some things. I know, you should never google health issues because they all basically tell you the worst. I clearly remember coming across something called Primary Hyperparathyroidism. Super long, but this was something fairly serious. I read it out loud and it stated tumors in your parathyroid causing your calcium levels to elevate. We both looked at each other and I said “No way I don’t have a tumor,” but I thought what if. I changed the subject. When I got home I did some more research. What if this was really it?

Sure enough, the internet was right. I was diagnosed with Primary Hyperparathyroidism. Being 18 years old, this was very rare and because of that it required surgery. By doing ultra sounds and MRI’s they detected one tumor on my left gland. My surgery was scheduled for January 13th. I wasn’t nervous at all. I went into this thinking I was going to be in and out and that getting my wisdom teeth out was probably much worse than what this will be. A simple removal of an unwanted pesky tumor, that’s it. It was Monday, January 12th, the night before surgery and now, I was really getting scared. Tuesday morning my alarm clock rang at 7 a.m.. I got up, got dressed, and headed out the door to Rhode Island Hospital. I was surprisingly calm, super calm. As I was in the pre-op room I kept cracking jokes, like the clown I am, it got my mind off of things. The anesthesiologist came in and gave me a dose of “the good stuff.” Boy were they right when they call it “the good stuff.” From that point on, I don’t remember much but being wheeled into the operating room and seeing bright lights. I also remember seeing an army of doctors and nurses and being strapped in really tight. One of the doctors even started playing music and I remember thinking “Dude, you’re about to cut me open you need to concentrate, shut that off!” But it was out of my control and two minutes later I was knocked out. “The good stuff” was in full effect.

I remember a lady talking to me, calling my name, as I was waking up. I kept thinking to myself “who is this lady and why is she talking to me, it’s Friday morning who the hell is she.” Then I realized where I was and what had just happened. I couldn’t move my neck. My head, at the time, felt like it weighed 50 pounds and moving was just a task that wasn’t going to happen that day. When the surgeon came out to speak to my parents, what seemed to be a five minute surgery to me was much more entailed then what they had thought. A one hour surgery turned into three, one tumor turned into four, and a one inch incision turned into three. They took out four tumors and three and a half glands. Leaving me with half of one when you only need one to live. Doctors said my calcium level was at 75 when I first went in. The normal level is 8.7-10.5 so I guess it was pretty high. I stayed overnight to be monitored and I never wanted to come home so bad as I did that night. I just wanted my bed, my house, a familiar atmosphere I was comfortable in. Instead of nurses and doctors coming in every hour and waking me up. Thankfully I came home the next day and was put on lots and lots of medication to get my calcium levels back to where they needed to be.

Now, almost a month after surgery I am still being tested. Tested for different types of syndromes, diseases and forms of cancer. It’s draining physically and mentally. I have been anxiously waiting for the moment that I feel 100 percent. Every day is still a struggle to get up and get things done but I am still healing, it’s expected. But I am slowly getting back into the groove of the things I used to do like going to the gym. You can’t really prepare yourself for what comes your way, you just have to take it. I have learned to not take things so serious and to just brush things off. “Life is too short” has a new meaning to me.