A Better Me Excerpt: Mystery Diagnosis

Mystery Diagnosis
Iremember three years of my life feeling like I was in a tunnel with no escape route, opening my eyes always in a hospital bed, not understanding what led me to it or suggestions releasing doctors’
mouths. Waking up and not getting back to sleep due to pains, aches, worries, and troublesome thoughts. People revealing their true colors, discovering my body was thinner than usual, feeling like I wasn’t myself, trying to hold on to faith, but even that was a stretch, and some nights wondering if I was better off dead. I hated that my mom, sisters, and I witnessed, endured, and lived through it. No one knew how to help me, heal me, or get to the root of what was damaging my health and sanity. It got worse before it got better. I was crying out for better answers.
I felt like my doctors were opening up a dictionary rambling around words, ideas, and phrases instead of just saying they didn’t know how to resolve it. My hidden strength, family observations, research, and faith kept me on the path of remaining here. But I couldn’t stop wondering if I would ever get answers to what had been happening physically andmentally for such a long period. One of my first symptoms was panic attacks. My chest would tighten up, and airwaves clogged, I became hot, drenched in sweat, lose balance, blackout, waking up in a hospital bed. My doctors would run numerous tests concluding that I could be a borderline diabetic. I agreed it could be signs of diabetes because the trait ran through my family. So the doctors instructed me to lay off sugar-sweetened beverages, eat more fruit, drink more water, and get plenty of rest; until they tested me again.
Directly after the hospital visit, another attack came. I was at school in French class, looking up and down at the chalkboard taking notes on how to greet someone in France. The chalkboard looked as if it wasn’t directly in front of me, my vision started getting blurry, followed by a migraine, and then sweats came. I asked my teacher if I could be excused for a sip of water. She stated that I could. I tried to stand up to walk out of the classroom, but I went sideways towards a closet. I started panting, blacked out, with me awakening in the hospital. My friend Tory had come to see me and told me how afraid he was. He said when I fell; I hit my head against the closet metal pole. Our teacher had tried to wake me up, but I wouldn’t move.
“Tina, I thought you were gone.”