Harlee Asher: The Medical Mystery?

Mm… Doctor’s office, my old friend… and how have you been as of the recent? Oh? No changes? how fascinating… Oh me? You should know better than to ask…

Ever since I was… let’s say 14, I knew something was going on inside of my body. Eating certain foods made me sick, it made my stomach hurt but it had never done that before… found out I have IBS. Fast forward to age 16, high school Harlee has missed 18 days of school due to being sick and is being blood tested… fast forward to age 18, high school senior Harlee is being charged truancy for missing 20+ days and had to plead to the school board to reinstate her credits so she could graduate (thank god for the doctor’s notes, parent’s notes and her good grades right?). It’s at this point that she’s been poked and prodded with needles on and off since her sweet 16th year while her doctor tries to figure out what the hell is going on… and then suddenly… Stomach flu, strep throat, stomach bug all within 2 months in which she immediately develops Post-Strep Arthritis… great… (on the plus side, my credits were reinstated!)
Fast forward some more, I’m in college, and I find out about the Hypothyroidism stuff and ANA positivity which means, you guessed it, MORE BLOOD TESTING! Testing, testing, testing, ANA positive again, fun stuff. Now… skipping my time in Missouri where I did absolutely nothing about my health at all, move to April when I’m blood tested AGAIN, my ANA is negative… and my thyroid is normalish but I’d been having problems with my legs for a few years at that point so they send me to a rheumatologist. MORE BLOOD TESTINGGGG and my ANA is negative again but I show a severe vitamin D deficiency and my thyroid is showing signs of thyroiditis… (one side is hyper, the other is hypo) more blood testing… some x-rays of my legs, fun stuff…

Now, I’m 19 year old Harlee… about to HOPEFULLY find out what the fuck has been going on and if these result come back inconclusive… Time for me to meet my new Endocrinologist.

Did I mention by huge fear of needles?

My Creaking and Shrieking Body

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it, but for a loooooong time now I’ve known that there was something wrong with my body. I was always sick, always tired, always having weight fluxuations, always sore, always creaking. At first, I thought it was normal; a growing girl? But I began noticing that my body would get weak and I became sick after eating certain foods. I would gain weight so fast and lose it so slowly and of course, to a 13 year old girl, that completely shattered my confidence. I ignored it at first, went about my day, but I became the butt of jokes at my school. I was bullied for being the “weird girl” or the “sick girl”, the “fat girl” or the “ugly girl”.

This continued until eventually I had enough and a lot of stuff went down and OF COURSE my body got weaker. I found out, after I had entered High School, that I had developed IBS and during my senior year, I found out that there was something wrong with my thyroid (which turned into hypothyroidism). After learning about the hypothyroidism, we found out that it had a lot of do with my weight gain and my hormone levels fluxuating and a bunch of other shit that aided in my middle school years being miserable. This wasn’t horrible and easily something I would live with but to make matters worse, I got strep throat soon after and after that I developed Post Streptococcal (post strep) Arthritis that just… never went away.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt full body pain that hurts so much that it paralyzes you, but that’s what post strep is. I woke up and the very act of wiggling my fingers shot a series of painful spasms across my arm and body, I couldn’t even move without crying in pain. Its like every joint and muscle in your body lacks any kind of strength and support and I felt so bad for my parents who honestly had no idea about any of it. My dad would say I was over reacting and that I needed to just get over it, my mom would kind of just think I was being sluggish or lazy but I think with her, after a few days with nothing getting better she became worried.

The post strep (this time) lasted about a week and after that I was moving around like before. I thought that it was all just a weird experience but not long after (my body is weak, remember?) I got the flu and it AAALLLL came back at once and this time lasted a full month. My mother gave me a walker for when I got like that which I’m thankful for because I was never the same after that. My joints would creak and ache and I would get so sore and it just got worse and worse.

Now I’m 18, still have IBS… still have Hypothyroidism… my joints are a hell of a lot worse and recently found out that I have a good chance of having juvenile arthritis or Lupus disease. It’s all a lot of medical things and ALL OF IT is genetic.

This is the story of my creaking and shrieking body, it sucks but I just have to make the best of my bad situations.