(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)
For the last 3-4 years, I felt as if I have a lump in my throat constantly. I can’t cough it up and it won’t go away no matter what I do.
Each time I brought it up with my doctors, they asked if I can swallow. As I have had the issue for at least a year before I remembered to ask a doctor about it, my response was, “Of course I can swallow, otherwise I’d have died of starvation by now”.
Smart alec aside, I grew increasingly concerned, but the doctors I went to were not because, as one doctor told me, “if you can swallow, then it’s not cancer.”
My original doctor, who I’ve been with for over ten years, seemed to think it was related to asthma, which he diagnosed a few years before, even though I was never tested and an allergy specialist suspected that I don’t have asthma.
My next doctor was young and enthusiastic. She thought that I had nasal drip. I was 99% sure that wasn’t the case, but did not press the issue; she was the doctor afterall. She gave me a nasal spray to try, and asked me to use it every night until it was done. It lasted for about a month, and not surprisingly, it did not work. After I told her that I forgot to spray for about two days at the end, she insisted that I do it again properly.
Since I heard that overuse of nasal spray is bad, I was fairly certain that I did not have nasal drip, and I thought that missing the dose for two days out of an entire month should not affect the outcome, I decided against it. It didn’t matter as my time with this doctor was short-lived, thanks to receptionists who were unable to answer the phone for weeks on end.
A few months ago, I finally found my current doctor (I will post about the experience of trying to find a doctor in Toronto soon). She tried to ask about nasal drip, but I made it very clear that the trial with the previous doctor did not work. She sent me to an ENT specialist, who, upon hearing my symptoms, said I have classic symptoms for (silent) acid reflux.
On Monday, he looked at my throat with a little camera; the swelling at the back of my voice box confirmed his suspicion.
Now, you may ask, where is the inspirational twist in this story?
It is in the first time I have ever heard of silent acid reflux.
In 2007, I went on a cruise with my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time. I sat in a lounger on the lido deck, ready to absorb some Vitamin D. My throat had been feeling closed off all morning, and just as I was thinking about how annoyed I felt about the lump in my throat, the wind blew open a magazine that someone left on the table next to me.
Now, I normally don’t touch other people’s things, even if they are obviously left behind to be thrown out or used by others. This time, however, something told me to read the article the wind blew to. The article was written by a woman who was misdiagnosed for years before finding out that she had silent acid reflux.
I was very excited to read it, as the symptoms fit me completely. The author even talked about her chronic fatigue and how it was due to the untreated silent acid reflux.
“That’s me!” I yelled as I shoved the magazine into the space between my boyfriend’s face and novel. He looked at me as though I was crazy — more so than usual — and said that I shouldn’t jump to conclusion.
At that moment, I knew in my heart that this diagnosis made the most sense. Afterall, acid reflux is a common ailment. The probability of having silent acid reflux is certainly much greater than many other diseases and disorders that cause “a lump in the throat”, most of which are rare, especially for my age and gender.
But…
My boyfriend/husband was doubtful.
Three consecutive doctors could not come up with this possibility. When I brought it up, they too seemed doubtful as they said “well … it’s possible, but it could also be x or y” and quickly moved onto the other possible ailments.
So I didn’t believe, and I forgot about the possibility. In other words, I doubted myself.
If I had just listened to my heart and been more assertive instead of expecting that the answer could only come from an external source (i.e. doctors), maybe I would have had the answer sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t risk permanent damage to the tissues in my throat.
What I learned from this is that things sometimes happen for a reason, and we should not ignore signs that at times literally fly into our faces. We should listen to and trust our intuition a little more.
Lastly, the author simply wrote an article. Perhaps it was nothing groundbreaking and didn’t win any award, but it landed beside me on that fateful morning and opened my eyes. Because it also acted as a sign, it opened my mind as well.
To me, the woman is an inspiration, but she will never know.
This woman could be anyone. She could be you. We could all be an inspiration to another person, unbeknown to us. You may not get any tangible reward from this, but believe that it is true, and live your life accordingly.
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