Doctors never did figure out why I had been sleeping so much. They tested for all sorts of things, but came up short. They suspected Susac’s Syndrome, which at the time I thought was fatal, so I’m glad that turned up negative. I’ve had a couple fluorescein angiograms to take pictures of the blood vessels in my eyes, but both times they showed that everything was normal. To this day, I’m still a medical mystery. 

After sleeping a couple months of my life away, I started to wake up a bit more to what was going on. I was still very deaf and still could not see well, and still had no answers and no hope. The reality of it all was starting to set in. I was now, ironically, having trouble falling asleep at night. The tinnitus would get so loud. I remember the ringing sounded a lot like chanting monks, which would normally be a comfort to me, but at four in the morning it was a nuisance. I brought this issue up to Dr. Hong at a follow up visit and he prescribed me Xanax to help me sleep. It worked wonders. I was able to get proper rest at night and was miraculously still able to wake up in the mornings to help get the kids ready for school. 

I want to convey my level of desperation at this point in time without being overly dramatic. Mike and the kids had left me home alone for an evening because I had seemed to be doing so well, but that turned out to not be the case. I was feeling scared and beat down and I couldn’t see any way out of my situation. I was unable to communicate effectively with everyone I cared about. I felt utterly ALONE. I was at the end of my rope, and wanting to let go. I was feeling so desperate for a way out that I seriously considered swallowing the whole bottle of Xanax. Even more frightening than the hearing and vision loss was the thought that I wanted to check out of life permanently. I reached out to my girlfriends, hoping and praying that one of them could come over and save me from myself. My friend Tracy was the first to respond and she rushed over to the house. She prayed with me and hugged me and reminded me that I was not alone in this struggle. She left that night with the bottle of Xanax so I wouldn’t be tempted again.

As awful as it was, that night was a turning point for me. I had to stop retreating into myself. I needed to reach out, both to God and to the friends and family He had put in my life. After my family returned home that night and we put the kids to bed, I shared with my husband what had happened. I could see from his face that he was both shocked and sad, but he was glad I told him and he reassured me that we were in this together, and that he and the kids needed me. We hugged for a long time and he let me cry on his shoulder. It was good to be reminded that he was there for me because, while we didn’t know it yet, we had an important trip coming up at the end of the month to the Mayo Clinic. I’ll be sharing more about that in the next installment of Adventures with Mel 😉