The Bridge to Alternative Medicine

In December, 2009, I asked my new doctor for help with my long-term health issues. He agreed. He asked for time to review my entire medical history. I agreed and scheduled a follow-up in January. My follow-up appointment came. I filled in holes in the medical history with anecdotal stories.

I had been hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2005 when my illness began. My abdomen started to hurt in North Carolina. I stopped in Franklin, NC. I ate a pizza. I threw up. I continued hiking. My feet began to ache. My shoulders started to ache. It was nothing unusual for long-distance hiking, I thought. I reached Damascus and rested for two days. It did not help. I hiked on. I reached the Virginia Highlands. I took pictures of wild ponies. I took an afternoon nap. It did not help. I had a fever. I went to bed early. One night, in the middle of the night, I woke up in a sweat, nauseated, and having to use the toilet. I scrambled to get my shoes on, grab my headlamp, and run out of the shelter. Within fifteen feet of the shelter, I crashed to the ground, landing in a pile of rocks beside a bush. After a minute, my head cleared. I stood and stumbled through the darkness. Dizziness came. Darkness came. I crashed to the ground. The stars came through the darkness. They were spinning. They stopped. I stood. I walked on. The toilet was on top of a platform. There were no walls. The wind blew. I began to shiver. I began to freeze. I stumbled back to the shelter. I woke up the next morning unable to eat. I hiked fifteen miles to the nearest road, rested for two days, and continued hiking. Another week in the woods. Another hundred miles. More dizziness. More fever. New aches and pains. I stopped in Pearisburg, Virginia. I called my parents. They drove down from Gettysburg the next day. They took me home. I rested. I did not get better.

My doctor listened patiently to my stories, to the beginning of my symptoms. When I was done, I told him about a few new symptoms - a bitter taste in my mouth, sharper abdomen pain. He nodded. He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. Everyone has different filters, he began. I nodded. I wondered where he was going. Multitudes of illnesses known to man manifest themselves in a small number of symptoms, he continued. He said my symptoms were not consistent with illnesses that were known. He said that my filter was too sensitive. He said that I was complaining of too many symptoms. He said that I needed to learn to ignore most, if not all of my symptoms. He said that my tests showed that I was normal, that my symptoms were a normal part of growing older.

I was baffled. My doctor was telling me that my lack of energy after work, my abdomen pains, my inability to focus, my headaches, my tonsil stones, the bitter taste in my mouth, my brain fog, my frequent urination, and all the rest of my symptoms were all a natural part of growing old. He was telling me that my five years of illness were not real. He was telling me that I was too sensitive to pain. He didn't understand the depths of my illness, the depression, the struggles with brain fog, the muscle pain, the fatigue. I was infuriated. I left. I stopped believing that western medicine could and would eventually find a diagnosis for my ailment.