Compiling Funny Stories!

[Bella127]

Hi Everyone!

It has been forever since I've posted! I have an idea that I want to share with everyone. The main thing is - I don't want all of us living in a depressing "POTS hole" -- it's time to dig ourselves out. I would love to have everyone post funny things that have happened because of/while having/in dealing with a chronic illness (not that it's fun or funny to have one - or that any of the symptoms are of that nature, trust me) -- whether it be an experience you had, telling a story, a fitting quote, funny reflections/ramblings, the stupidity of an ignorant doctor, your smark remarks back or daily struggles. In other words, things that we can all understand and relate to - in a positive light - as people who have a chronic illness.

It can be a song, a quote, a remark, anything! I think it would just be a fun way to discover that we have a lot more to laugh about than cry about (most of the time). I'm sick of all the books I've seen on chronic illness - the author's name might as well have been "Negative Nancy"

As Melissa (Hi, Melissa! ) pointed out to me, the "You know you have dysautonomia when" posts are a GREAT fit for this! Also, I think I have seen something before on the worst jobs for people suffering from dysautonomia. I would just like to get all of these types of things together somehow, while collecting more. Just think of how could be helped just by reading...those who really need a lift, those who are just getting diagnosed, those who are struggling at the moment...all of us.

That is the main point behind my post - so please, everyone, post away! We'll see what happens!

Here's a little something to start us off:

"Dizzy

I'm so dizzy, my head is spinnin'

Like a whirlpool, it never ends..."

(Everyone knows that song!)

I will post one of my (many) funny stories a little bit later! Thanks everyone!

*Chrissy

p.s. I'm not saying we should all walk around making fun of ourselves when our legs turn purple (although, I do, ) and laughing it off every time we faint. It's all a balance -- of course, having an illness isn't funny, nor are the symptoms. But I'm sure EVERYONE can think of a lot of things that have happened that you might not have thought as funny at the time - but looking back, probably a sense of humor helps put things in perspective.

If you would like to know how this idea came about, or anything else, feel free to private message or email me...but all the important stuff is listed above!

[flop]

When I fainted at work a while back a colleague (remembering her first-aid training) had lifted my feet up in the air. I came round very quickly to a crowd of anxious faces peering over me. Usually I say something like "don't worry, it's happened before, I'll be ok in a minute" but this time I came out with "(giggle), you're tickling my feet!" Everyone fell about laughing.

Flop

[MightyMouse]

Before I got dx'd, I thought everyone got as dizzy as I did in the heat, and that it was normal to feel so heavy-limbed. My partner, Teri, told me she didn't want me mowing the lawn when she wasn't home b/c it had been above 90 degrees for days, but i did it anyway. I'm not sure how long I had been mowing before I passed out, but I fell flat on my back and the mower went on down the hill without me. My neighbor saw the whole thing from her 2nd floor window and came running as I was waking up. As I regained consciousness, I first was confused because I was looking up at the blue sky; she was all panicked and asked if I needed an ambulance--and all I could think to say was "No, no, no, this happens all the time, I'm fine, really". She looked at me like I had six heads. A few minutes later i got up on my own steam and finished the lawn (I then passed out in the shower).

Looking back i realize now how crazy that must have sounded to her--but until I went to the cardiologist later that year, I thought it was NORMAL. Well, really, it is NORMAL for ME.

Nina

[Kitsakatsa]

My dear neurologist just retired, but he was a brilliant man and the thing my mother and I loved about him is that he would giggle like a girl. There are two particularly funny times when he just couldn't contain himself. My mother and I used to make fun of the dreary details of POTS and all three of us would be giggling fast.

The first time was when I tried explaining how hideous the foods were that held the dye for gastric emptying test. There was the time with the eggs, then the worst time with the generic canned beef stew. That time was after I was hospitalized because I hadn't eaten much of anything for 2 months. Just describing the eggs and the state of the beef stew had us rolling on the ground, plus the whole experience was void because we later found 1 of the electrodes on the floor!

The second time was when he told me to lay down for 20 min halfway during the work day and I tried explaining to him that laying anywhere near the floor in a hospital invokes all sorts of caos and is likely to result in at least 1 IV, a risk of electroshocks and my blouse being ripped off, not in a good way. Also, with my vital signs, I would probably qualify for at least 2 colors of code called overhead at any given moment. He was giggling so hard he couldn't breathe. I really am going to miss him!

[pat57]

I had an episode where I laid down at work and I was asked , "What does your family do, when you do that at home".

My reply.

"Step over me".

[MightyMouse]

Pat, that's too funny!

I asked Teri what she thought was funniest and I liked hers better than mine--she'd sent me to a urologist she worked with whose name is "Fingerman", which I made oodles of jokes about before I even got to his office! Anyone who knows me knows I'm a jokester. Anyway, this has to do with the gastroparesis and slow motility issues:

I ended up seeing him b/c I'd been having low back and mid back pain for months. All my other specialists couldn't find anything wrong and finally, my gyn told me to go see a urologist. Dr. F. felt my abdomen front and back and then had his assistant take me for an x-ray. When he came into the room with the film, he put it up on the light board and said "I know why you're having pain"--you could see my intestines, filled with matter, from top to bottom--he said "you're bowels are very backed up" and then I said "so you're telling me I'm full of -bleep-" His face was very serious, and he was blushing and I don't think he knew how to respond... I just couldn't stop laughing.

I ended up making him feel less embarassed b/c I told him how "relieved" I was to have a simple answer: I'm "full of it" and just needing a good laxative! (well, if it were just that easy, life would be grand, yes?).

Nina

[Mrs. Burschman]

Hello all,

I've always been very heat intolerant. My husband (then my boyfriend) learned this when I lived in an apartment without air conditioning (dumb idea.) He came over one evening and found me laying flat on the living room floor in front of a big box fan, making terrible whining noises. Later that summer, we went to a wedding 400 miles away. We drove. We had no air conditioning in our car. I was very cranky. I was even crankier when we got to our destination. It was hot. He tried to put his arm around me. I pushed his arm off. He says it's the only time I've ever rejected a hug!

Needless to say, we will never have another home or vehicle without AC. Our marriage depends on it!

[pat57]

I had been to this site. http://home.att.net/~potsweb/POTS.html

which states (among other things) that

" A poor memory is a major symptom of POTS, and many patients will have a difficult time just remembering their own symptoms while conversing with doctors. The total damage to the autonomic nervous system POTS sufferers experience, called dysautonomia, causes what Dr. David Robertson of Vanderbilt University refers to as ?mild autonomic abnormalities.?

After reduceing the lenght of my shift at work I was explaining a few prominent symptons of dysautonomia. As I understood it from that site. With dysautonomia being the cause for the change in my work schedule.

I was telling Salena ( a coworker) that the three major symptoms for me, are confusion, fatique and ---------oh gosh I forgot the third one. And I had forgoten it. I stood there pondering, and when it hit me- poor memory -I broke out laughing so hard I couldn't speak at all, and with tears coming out of my eyes I managed to squeak out the words,

"poor memory" .

Then I just walked away laughing uncontrolablly. I'm sure she thought I was off the deep end.

It still makes me LMAO>

[Maxine]

Take a good look at my signature line.

OK-----now imagine a neurologist who has an assistant professor position in a medical university telling you that everything you claim that is "physically" wrong is manifested in your mind. As David Letterman would say----"WHAT!"

I asked him, "are you telling me that all the other physicians who diagnosed my illnesses are wrong, and only you are right".

"Obviously, if "everything" is manifested in my mind".

He said "WAIT, I am trying to help you"!

I was mad I admit, but I also thought it was one of the most obtuse things I ever heard. And when you think about this doctor having an assistant professor position------it's funny, but pretty scary at the same time.

There was also another doctor who told me I could stand to lose a few more pounds after going from a size 10 down to a 6 in four weeks when I first crashed with my POTS----------------LOL-------------------

I know this type of ignorance is quite sad, but some of it is so bizarre you have to laugh sometimes.

Maxine :0)

[mattsmum]

A couple of years ago before I was diagnosed I joined a gym that was a basic circuit training. At regular intervals they get you to get off whatever machine you are on and to measure your pulse rate and compare it to a chart. I was on my second machine when they played the interval and already my pulse rate was already off the chart. Had no idea then that it was because of POTS. I was so confused why it was so high I just thought I was incredibly unfit. I look back and laugh now because when I was first diagnosed with POTS my pulse rate was 225

[bluebeauty875]

About a year ago before I knew that I had POTS I was feeling like I was going to faint and this had happened before so I knew the symptoms. So without really thinking about it I ran (yes ran) to try to get to my parent's room before I fainted. I don't know how I did this, but I must have passed out as I was running and fell right into a post that is connected to our stair railing and then fell backwards. I must have made a really loud thump, because all of a sudden my dad comes running up the stairs and frantically asked me what happened. I'm so thankful I didn't fall down the stairs! The whole day I was having to deal with a fat lip, but it could have been much worse. Even now I have to giggle at how my fuzzy my logic was!!