I Was Diagnosed With Addisons

It all started in the early 2000’s. I was midway in the eighth grade and I had terrible stomach pains. I had been complaining with my stomach forever. I can’t remember what day it was but I was sent to the hospital to have my appendix removed. I was out of school for 2 weeks. I thought that it was all over but things started changing. my skin was started to tan, I thought it was just because I was out in the sun a lot. Then I started ninth grade. Everything was going well and it happened. I remember the date only because it is a very important one, September 11, 2001. That morning I was feeling really bad, I felt faint, and I was sweating a lot. I asked my teacher if I could go and call my mom to get me. Once I got up to the front office I passed out, for what seemed like 30 minutes. Then I finally got up and called my mom to come get me. We went immediately to the hospital, and I had to get an emergency gallbladder removal. Will a couple weeks go by and I think I’m starting to feel ok, and I get incredible pain in my stomach again, I think what else could it be, so I go back to the hospital and I have to have IV’s in both of my arms and be rehydrated. Well this pattern goes on for at least a month until a nurse gets upset and begs the doctor to run tests. Well they run every blood test they can and it comes back that I have Addison’s disease, and hypothyroidism. Well they start me on Prednisone and Synthroid. Well I start feeling better and I think everything is fine, well I get sick again; they call it a “Addisonian crisis”. Since then I have only had 2 of these crises and each time it seems to get worse, the last one since my potassium was so high I had a slight heart attack. But now I’m fine and they have switched me to hydrocortisone. Everything has worked out, I’m tan year round and people wonder how that’s possible, and I just tell them it is.