Health Turning The Corner

I've been struggling with some significant health problems the last couple years, to the point that in retrospect, it's a bit surprising I'm still alive from it. 

Around the time my mother got sick with a respiratory illness that ultimately killed her, I was starting to struggle with what I had thought was an annoyingly persistent cold.  As gradually as everything had come on, I didn't even recognize how bad I'd gotten. I could drag myself into work and back home, but I didn't have any energy to spare. I could build up the motivation for necessities, but even something as basic as playing video games was too much to muster the effort for.

Because I assumed I was dealing with a bad cold combined with depression, I didn't get in to see a doctor for around a year, at which point they told me my blood iron was dangerously low and I needed an immediate transfusion. 

When looking for the cause, I went to a GI specialist to look for internal bleeding, and instead ended up diagnosed with a gluten allergy.  That was causing my body to not absorb nutrients, and is probably something that's been there my entire life, causing a number of issues I hadn't really put together. 

While they were in there looking around, they found out my esophagus was developing rings and gradually closing up, making it more and more difficult to swallow.  Another thing that had been going on but I hadn't thought anything of it.  I just thought I wasn't chewing well enough. 

While I was under, the anesthesiologist told me I needed to get a sleep study done, because I was showing signs of sleep apnea. 

A paperwork screw up meant I missed the window for my first attempt at the test several months later, and because I didn't have the energy to advocate for myself, I ended up waiting another six months for the next opening. 

Eventually, after falling asleep at work a few times, my supervisor advised I take a leave of absence to get things together.  I ended up out of work for a month, sleeping thirteen hours a day, but finally starting to come out of the depressed, exhausted state and start to feel like myself. 

They screwed up the paperwork on the sleep study again, but this time I was able to fight them on it and get the thing done, at which point, I got a proper diagnosis, and finally got the CPAP machine I'm going to need to treat it. 

So, after two years, I'm able to eat, digest what I eat, breath at night, sleep, and have enough blood to avoid organ failure.  The depression and exhaustion are finally gone, I'm back at work part time while I get the treatment sorted out, but hopefully I'll be back full time soon.  I'm actually feeling so good I'm finally getting around to some redecorating I'd been putting off and joined a gym to get some regular exercise in.