The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a well known Aesop’s fable. What you may not know is this fable has imposed a long-term grip of fear on me.
I believe that if I seek out help for a medical problem and it turns out that I’m just fine – I am essentially crying wolf. This frightens me and I worry that when I really, really need help, no one will come to the rescue because of the times there was nothing wrong.
Why would an adult have this irrational fear? I can tell you this fear started at a 
young age. Having ongoing health problems, many not easily diagnosed or never diagnosed, only perpetuates this fear. For example, I made an appointment with my PCP for today because I’ve had a sore throat for the past few days. Because I otherwise felt fine, I worried that I would leave the appointment feeling like I shouldn’t have wasted the doctor’s time because there was nothing wrong.
To the contrary. My pharynx has a great deal of swelling and I have a bacterial infection called Haemophilus Influenza. It doesn’t have flu-like symptoms, it’s a potentially serious condition and my PCP says she is seeing strains that are resistant to antibiotics. I received a shot of steroids and some antibiotics and need to update doc on how I’m doing. I’ll be fine.
Looking back, I haven’t felt fine this week. My appetite’s been reduced; I’ve had a headache nearly every day; and I’ve felt extra fatigued including falling asleep earlier than usual. In my mind, I thought there couldn’t possibly be a real reason for these symptoms.
This is what chronic illness does to a person. It’s the chronic illness mindset.
No day is ever an “I feel awesome day” so every day falls somewhere in the continuum of pretty okay to okay to bad to worse.
Looking forward, I am concerned about my upcoming appointments: my muscle biopsy and my new neurologist. While it may seem logical to be nervous about the biopsy as it is a surgical procedure and I’ll have an anesthetic, I realize that’s not truly my fear. My fear is what people will think of me if another tests brings no answers and there turns out to be nothing wrong.
If you need a refresher on The Boy Who Cried Wolf, click here.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | undiagnosed chronic illness
Am I reading this correctly? Do you remember, were you saying that you felt worse AFTER taking the antibiotic?
If so, look into something called the “Herxheimer Reaction”. Basically it’s just more toxins being released into your blood stream than your body can handle after taking an antibiotic. It’s most commonly referred to when discussing Lyme’s or Candida, but there are many other conditions that could cause this reaction too.
From reading your blogs up to this point, it certainly appears that you at least have co-existing conditions. Needless to say I have a lot of catching up yet to do, but the one thing I’m not seeing up to this point is the most basic things; your baseline vitals (BP, pulse, temp, respirations) and pH levels. When I started monitoring some of these… I was absolutely shocked with what I found. My temp in the mornings is incredibly low (as low as 94.5), my pH has been all over the place, BP all over, pulse all over… but usually high. It might not answer the questions, but it will remove all doubt from your head (if there is any) as to whether or not any of this is “in your head”.
Absolutely understand what you’re talking about with the “Crying Wolf” concept though. It’s just another part of the frustration when you go through something like this.