A Look Back

In 2005, I almost died. In July of that year, I suffered some of the worst headaches I've ever had. Headaches that left me retching into the toilet and unable to stand up on my own. On July 26th, my 20th birthday, I was admitted in the hospital for possible meningitis. I had a spinal tap and it revealed I had an infection in the my spinal fluid, but it was later found out that it was not meningitis. My doctors felt I had pseudotumor cerebri. It is found in obese women only and causes spinal fluid to build up between your optic nerves and brain, causing severe migraines and loss of eyesight. For the next 2 months, I suffered from this. I had over 7 spinal taps and 5 MRI's. Because of the rate I was throwing up, they gave me an anti-nausea medication that I was apparently allergic to and it nearly killed me. I suffered several severe seizures and spent 4 days in the ICU in a state of hallucination that scared the hell out of my parents. At one point, the doctors told them to invite family to town that might want to say goodbye to me. By some miracle, I came out of that, but still suffered from the headaches and I began to lose my eyesight in my right eye. My eye crossed and I lost the vision in it almost completely. The only thing that kept the pain at bay was a high dose of Dilaudin (sp?) that was administered every 4 hours. I became addicted to it during my stay and the withdrawal process was terrible.
I was finally released from the hospital after 2 months, but still suffered. While some of my vision had come back, my eye was still crossed and my speech was slurred. I can only describe it as knowing what I wanted to say, but not being able to physically say it. I STILL have trouble with that, 3 years later.
My parents and I drove to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville to meet with a neurologist, Dr. Capobianco, and he strongly felt I had a condition called Bartleson's Syndrome. This is a condition caused by abnormal spinal fluid that causes severe migraines and motory, sensory, speech, and visual disturbances. This is also related to overweight patients, primarily women. In almost all cases, you recover completely, but it CAN happen again.

Motivation for losing weight doesn't have to be for vanity purposes or because you're made fun of or want a change. There are serious medical conditions caused by obesity that CAN be prevented, just like mine. Every day, I'm scared it'll happen again. Every headache makes me wonder if it's like the headaches from that time. The period of my life was so scary for both me and my family and I can't imagine going through that again.

I've definitely come a long way since then. I gained more weight gradually after being released from the hospital until I got to my highest weight of 248. I will NEVER get to that point again. My life depends on it.