The Mystery Illness Diaries: The Final Chapter

Let's close the chapter on this bitch.

Did they ever figure out what was wrong with me?  Ha!  You and I both wish.  No doctor was ever able to figure out what type of nasty ass Mystery Illness attacked my body last March.  Mayo Clinic even rejected my case not once, but twice.  Although they didn't really reject my case the second time my doctor and I petitioned for me to get in... they simply ignored my requests by never bothering to send an answer.  Sort of like insurance companies do.

By the grace of God, I slowly, slowly, slooooowly started to get better.  I went from not being able to walk at all, to walking across the yard, to walking for ten minutes, to walking a mile, to running half a mile... it was all an incredibly slow process, and often a bit insufferable.  But in the face of the medical community having absolutely no idea what to make of me, I found myself clinging to every single baby step (literally, baby steps), hoping and praying and believing that I would make a full recovery.  My tiny baby steps, in the face of the unknown, were what got me through the months of March, April, May, and June.  That, and all of the love, support, prayers, hopes and wishes of all my friends and family.  Because of all of you, right now I am sitting in a hostel in South America, preparing for a four day hike through the Inca Trail which will end at Machu Picchu, feeling nearly 100% completely recovered ♥.

Because the doctors were never able to give me a diagnosis, I wasn't sure what to blog about for a long time.  Once I was able to work again, all of my energies were suddenly turned towards making enough money to go on the South American trip that Ashley 'Wolf' Wakefield and I had been planning in different capacities for the last four years.  Now that we are here, realizing our four-year dream in spite of a ridiculous amount of trials and tribulations, I felt a need to write a final epilogue of sorts regarding this nasty little chapter of my life.  A sort of cathartic, written exorcism of Illnesses Past.  This trip pretty much marks a beginning of a new life for me, because when I return to the States, I will be starting over completely.  I will be looking for a new job.  For new adventures.  For new places to live.  I want to travel!  I want to learn.  I want to see all seven continents.  I want so much and am not afraid to go out and get it, no matter how unconventional that may seem for a girl who is four days away from turning thirty.  I will return home super pumped to see what the next fabulous decade will bring me!  But first, some closure on The Mystery Illness Diaries ♥.

It's One Thing To Always Get Carded, But This Is Ridiculous 

Throughout the entirety of my twenties, people have always, always told me that I am very young and youthful for my age (no matter what my age was) and then always hastened to explain that they meant that in the most complimentary of ways.  They didn't need to explain further because I always knew exactly what they meant and always took it as a compliment: I am very youthful for my age in a good way.  What people usually mean when they say that to me is that even though I may be (enter random 20 something age here) years old, I have a ton of energy and spunk that most people my age don't have. Maybe it's because I'm always belly laughing loudly in public.  Maybe it's because I am a  huge, obvious extrovert.  Maybe it's because I can run around with children for hours and hours on end until I've tired them out instead of the other way around.  Maybe it's because I drink lots of water and don't tan or smoke, which we all know can age a person.  Whatever the combo, people usually guess I am five or so years younger than I actually am.  And I'm totally cool with that.  I don't mind it when my 21 year old brother and I go to the bar together and I get carded and he does not.  So, until this year, I've only had good associations with the concept of being eternally youthful.

Until that friggin' Mystery Illness.

What my primary doctor thinks happéned, with an emphasis on the word thinks, is that for absolutely no good reason I contracted a Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children.  This virus latches onto where your brain attaches to your spinal chord, and raises hell.  Not just any type of hell, but exactly the type of hell I went through for four months.  The complete numbness in the hands and feet.  The loss of motor skills in your proximal muscles.  The ridiculous amount of fatigue, the waves  of nausea, the inability to eat, the pain in the head, neck, and back.  And most maddening of all, a Near Impossible To Find Diagnosis.  This Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children will not show up in any tests, blood draws, xrays, spinal taps, MRIs, CAT Scans, or exorcisms (sound familiar?).  The only reason kids even get diagnosed with this Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children is because children under the age of 10 somtimes get saddled with it.  It's rare and weird and comes for reasons not really understood and just goes away on its own and doesn't seem to necessarily ever come back.

My doctor's nephew had this Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children when he was a 10 year old, and because she was involved with his case a decade ago, she thought maybe for some reason I, at the tender age of 29, had also contracted this Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children.

I can make peace with this idea for a few reasons: 1) Viruses are like the Pirates of the biomedical world.  They come, they rape, they pillage, and then they fucking leave.  I can make peace with the thought of a dick virus that came and did its dirty deed but then tired of my broken body and went to find a different wasteland to conquer. 2) Viruses of this type usually don't come back once they've left your system, and also aren't something you have to worry about transferring to your future offspring.  I like not having to worry about this thing lying dormant inside of me, waiting to rear its ugly head in 10 years.  I also like not having to worry about passing it onto my children someday.  3)  I really have no other option than to accept this hypothesis and make my peace with it.  No one else came even close dreaming up a proper diagnosis for me.  So, even though my doctor is not 100% sure I was hit by the Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children, it's the only thing any doctor was able to throw my way, and I'm glad to take it.  It's easier to make peace with a traumatic experience when you have a name to give to said experience.  Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children will have to do.  And as long as it never ever ever comes back (and my doctor says she doesn't think it will), I'll call it that and wash my hands of it, Pontius Pilate style.

Some Other Things of Note Before I Run Off Into the South American Night:

Two weeks before Grandma's Half Marathon, I was finally cleared to start running again!  And so, I did sort of a crazy thing: I ran a half marathon ♥.

Although I didn't technically graduate from Physical Therapy until August, I told my PT on Day One that I wanted to prove all of the neurologists wrong and run my third Half Marathon on June 16th.  I had been training for it before the Weird & Nasty Virus That Usually Only Attacks Children hit me, and one of the things that made me cry the hardest was when I was in the hospital and my neurologist told me that running a Halfie in June was pretty much out of the question.  Now, I am an incredibly safe girl who doesn't jeopardize her health just for funsies.  I told Molly, my fabulous PT, that I would only do what my body was capable of doing, but that I wanted to push myself to do as much of my Halfie as possible.  Even if I was only able to run one mile and had to walk the other 12.1 miles.  My only goal was to get to the starting line, and to somehow make it to the finish line.  Even if I walked the entire time.  Even if I crawled the whole time.  Even if the full marathoners caught up to me.  Even if I got trampled by all of the full marathon running Kenyans.  As long as I was able to try.

And, against all of the odds.... I ran almost the entire thing.  Before the Halfie and throughout my recovery process, I had only run 2 miles, two different times, so I fully expected myself to poop out after five miles, tops.  But before I knew it, I was at mile seven and I hadn't yet stopped to walk.  I did a combination of walking and running for the last 6.1 miles, and crossed the finish line with a time of about 3 hours and 4 minutes, a mere five or so minutes before all of the Kenyans running the Full came blasting through.  I. Was. FLOORED ♥.  I had exceeded even my own expectations!  The entire thing was incredibly emotional, and I cried a lot.  Like, I started crying at Mile 5 when an old man dressed in a super sweet kilt came out of his house and started bagpipping for all of us runners.  I was half sick by the time I was done, but I felt SO STRONG and SO PROUD.  Just as I was crossing the finish line, I heard my brother Tobin yell 'I LOVE YOU CORY!' from one of the front row seats in the bleachers.  After the race he took really good care of me, making sure I drank water, wrapping me up in my heat reflective blanket, and buying me a big lunch.  It was so wonderful to have him there, on a day that was so incredibly important to me!  My dad was also super proud of me, and even though he sort of thinks running is the most idiotic and masochistic thing a person can do to themselves, he proudly wore my medal around his neck the entire next day.  Running my Halfie was a pretty big deal, and was a major step in my recovery and healing process ♥.

I Got A Little Bit Famous!

 About a month before Grandma's Marathon, the Grandma's PR people put out a request for people's Marathon Stories.  Basically, they wanted to know if anyone running the Full Marathon, Half Marathon, or 5k had any Tears and Triumphs stories to share with the world.  I, quite obviously, had a pretty intense story to share, but in typical Cory Dack Fashion I wrote up and sent in my tale about a month after the deadline.  That was okay, because the little story I wrote up was something I did mostly for me.  Again with the whole Writing Is Catharsis notion.  Because I turned in my story SO late, I didn't think anyone would read it, let alone take notice of it.  I called my story From Hospital Bed to Half Marathon, and apparently it did catch someone's eye because three days before my Halfie I got a super unexpected phone call from Jacob Kittlestad of Channel 21 News.  He told me that the local news station was really excited about my Recovery Story, and that they wanted to do a News Feature on me!  Within an hour, Jacob and his camera man were at my house, filming my bedroom, asking to take pictures of my race medals, and interviewing me about my crazy health battles.  It was so surreal!  After the race, he caught up with me again and did a post race Victory Interview ♥.  The news story aired that night, and I was able to watch it for the first time with my Running Family at a post race party a member of my training group threw at a local bar.

Needless to say, the entire experience was pretty amazing.  There's more I could say, but we are about to sit down for a Peruvian Stir Fry dinner here at our hostel, so I will close the entry by posting first the story I submitted to Grandma's Marathon that got me my little 15 minutes of fame, and then a link to the TV feature itself.  And then, hopefully from here on out I will only blog about amazing travel opportunities, and other life adventures, and never, EVER have to blog about Mystery Illnesses ever, ever again ♥.

Here's the Story I Submitted to Grandma's Marathon:

From Hospital Bed to Half Marathon

By Cory Maria Dack

Duluth, MN

Garry Bjorkland Half Marathon

A year ago, I wasn't a runner. I loved being active, and I loved being outdoors, but to actively run outdoors or otherwise? It wasn't really my thing. But then one of my best friends shocked us all (and herself) by deciding to run a full marathon. Armed with an air horn and a bunch of bright posters that screamed her name, I cheered my friend on as she ran her way to the finish line. By the end of the day, I decided that if my best friend could run 26.2 miles, I should push myself to see if I could run even one.

I couldn't.

But that was okay with me! I wasn't surprised that I couldn't run a full mile after being inactive for a long time. I started small. I would run the length of one song on my discman (yes, I still have a discman) and then I would have to walk for 2-3 songs to recover. But eventually, I found myself running 2-3 song in a row, and only walking here and there. By the end of the month I had signed up for my first ever race: the Park Point Five Miler. When I crossed that finish line, I felt invincible! I couldn't believe I had run FIVE ENTIRE MILES. I knew that my life was changing, and a few weeks later I walked into the Duluth Running Company, bought my first real pair of running shoes, and signed up for their Whistlestop Full and Half Marathon Training Group.

The rest, as they say, is history. Between last July and this March I'd run in multiple 5ks, a 10k, a 15k, and even two different Half Marathons. And, as luck would have it, my lottery number was pulled for the Garry Bjorklund. I was excitedly training again with my friends from the Duluth Running Company when life threw a curve ball at me: I woke up one morning to find that my hands, feet, arms and legs were all numb. By the end of the week, I could barely walk. The months of March and April brought with them an endless amount of tests, CAT scans, MRIs, x-rays, a spinal tap, and even a week long stay in the hospital. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. All the tests kept coming back normal, which was laughable because I was barely walking, sleeping throughout most of the day, and hardly able to eat. I was passed from specialist to specialist: neurology, infectious disease, rheumatology, and more. You name it, I stumped 'em. I lost my ability to work, and with it my job. For two months my entire world was upside down.

Thankfully, I had the love and support of friends and family to pull me through. I also had an incredibly supportive primary doctor who really advocated for me, as well as a great physical therapist who has helped me fight to regain the strength in my legs. When I first started physical therapy, I was barely able to hobble around the house with a cane. Now a mere two weeks ago, I was able to go on my first run since I fell ill: 1.5 big miles! This was huge. Since then I have have logged in some serious training time, and have felt my strength come back in leaps and bounds with every step.

On Saturday, June 16^th, I am going to put on my Half Marathon bib and step onto the starting line with all of my friends. Will I run the entire 13.1 miles? Of course not. But I will walk and run for as much of the race as I can. This time, it's not about finishing in a certain amount of time. It's about doing the best that I can, while reflecting on how far I've come over the past few months. In short, this race is going to be my glorious come back. It won't be my fastest race ever, but it will certainly be my most victorious.

***

Here is the Link to My Super Awesome News Story:

 Newsaliciousness!

Until next time... ¡Buenas Noches!