Trauma--My Personal Story
If this could happen to me, a physician with one of the largest chronic illness medical practices in the United States, it can happen to anyone.
In 2011, I became rapidly disabled. Within 6 months, I could barely walk due to crippling arthritis. Six months after that, I was completely bed-bound, unable to sit up, turn over on my own in bed, or even lift my arms against gravity.
After losing 50 pounds, becoming severely anemic, and having fevers to 102F every night for a year, I almost died from a mystery illness missed by 25 top doctors.
Spoiler alert, I figured it out in the last inning, saved my own life, & clawed my way back to good health. Even wrote a best-selling book about it. (Chronic)
This article isn't so much about that. It's about what happened after. It's about how when I returned to practice in 2013, although physically better, I was emotionally broken.
And it's about how I got better from a profound emotional trauma. Freedom is a wonderful thing. We should all be free.
The brutal account of how a life threatening illness left me broken, both in body and spirit. After recovering physically, it would take years to get free from the emotional trauma of the experience. "If only I'd known sooner."--Hopefully nobody would have to say that after reading this.