My Story Edited

For some reason the last discussion was formatted incorrectly so I had to reformat it. I hope this encourages someone!

I promised myself after I recovered from the terrible symptoms of Mononucleosis I would attempt to write a testimonial of my experience for the sake of encouraging someone else in the wake of this horrific virus. I have read several personal experiences with the virus, and as I was in my worst state of symptoms I read them with great anticipation of the day I could finally gain back my quality of life.

For a young male, 23 years of age, I had never really been sick for more than 2-3 days at maximum. I grew up playing sports in public school and even attended college while living on campus. I lived the dorm life and still somehow escaped Mono for most of my young adult years.

After the countless articles I have read on Mono I learned that most people who end up experiencing symptoms are younger than 20 years old, and the older you become the more severe the symptoms can be. Even some reports say potentially 90% of the U.S. lives with the virus without any symptoms (tell me how that’s possible, I don’t know).

In my mind there are just about only two ways I can think of on how I attracted the Epstein Bar Virus (in the same family of the Herpes virus, which then matures into Mononucleosis). I am a full time Youth Pastor and I spend a great deal of time with students, middle school and high school age. I occasionally even substitute teach at the local middle school and high school, I perhaps drank from a water fountain that could have had saliva residue from a victim of the Epstein Bar Virus and or had some kind of contact with a student who sneezed or coughed that some how made its way into my mouth (absolutely disgusting, I know).

The other way that I may have attracted the virus is I had just gotten married roughly about a month and a half before the major symptoms came to fruition. I am told that the Epstein Bar Virus, which eventually matures in Mono, has an incubation period of about 30-90 days. Which means you can have the virus and then not experience any symptoms at all for a month or perhaps longer.

That very well may be the case for most but I started to experience symptoms that were extremely odd, at least at the time I thought they were odd. About three weeks after my wife and I had gotten married I came down with a very achy and fatigued type of cough. It lasted about two days so I didn’t think anything about it. That’s the normal length of time that I had ever felt bad for most all of my life. The strange part is about a week later I had the same exact symptoms/problem. I began to get frustrated because I didn’t understand the fact that I would have the same type of cold back to back. I got better in about another two days, so I gave no more thought to it.

I really started to become curious when in another week’s time I began to just feel plain bad. I went to a kids event at our church, and this event just flat wore me out, I wasn’t even orchestrating the event. I was cranky, I was irritable, tired, fatigued, and my joints hurt really bad, specifically the base of my neck (which I thought could be normal because I had had a previous injury to my neck). Apparently, I looked pretty bad because my wife and a few others said I looked pale and just not well. Here’s the curious thing; I took some Motrin and went to bed that night only to wake up feeling perfectly fine.

By this time I became very concerned about my health. Never had I experienced such odd illnesses and or flare ups in my body. Because I am a stubborn, prideful, 23 year old “healthy” guy I just pushed it off until about two weeks later. Two weeks time came and I was in a state of desperation, in a state of hopelessness, in a state of true and utter loss.

My Mono experience was somewhat of a slow fade. The actual two week stint of what you would call the “fruition of Mono” was a two week trial for my life. If you’ve had Mono, you’ve been there. I suppose the first day to the longest two weeks of my life started with an extremely swollen neck, more specifically my lymph nodes. They had become so swollen I couldn’t speak correctly. At the same time this happened I started to continually, without ceasing, profusely sweat an abnormal amount. I already sweat more than the average person but I mean I was sweating like you wouldn’t believe.

I would sleep with the fan directly on me and still wake up with drenched sheets in the night. My pillow case would literally be ringing wet. This all started on a Saturday. I started to feel extreme amounts of fatigue just before this on a Thursday. Sunday I woke up and went to church not knowing what I had, with a terribly swollen neck (and swollen body I might add, I had inflammation everywhere). I got through Sunday the best I could and went home. I remember telling my wife that if I wasn’t better by the morning that I would go to Urgent Care.

Unfortunately, because I am an ignorant 23 year old guy I still didn’t go. Instead I went to the church and worked because there were some fairly important things I needed to get done, due to it being the week before Christmas. I worked that day doing some trivial labor things (setting up tables and chairs) and I sweated through my shirt. I never did check my temperature but I felt relatively okay aside from my swollen lymph nodes and sweating issue.

I failed to mention that I have a dear friend who is a Nurse Practitioner and I had gone to his Clinic the night before (on Sunday Night). He tested me for the flu (which is awful by the way, and still to this day I have never had the flu; knock on wood) and strep throat. Both tests came back negative and so He prescribed me some Penicillin to try and blanket the diagnosis and start a recovery.

The problem is I woke up Tuesday feeling all the worse. By this time I started to develop a horrific taste in my mouth. The most distinguished and disgusting taste I believe I’ve ever had. Up to this point, oddly enough, I didn’t have any sinus congestion and or throat congestion. Starting Tuesday of the following week, from the start of my symptoms, I began the descent into some of the literal worst pain I have ever had.

My medical history is somewhat normal for a rough playing kid, I had my tonsils and adenoids removed, wisdom teeth removed, a couple of minor surgical procedures for cysts I had developed. One of the these cysts was on my tail bone and was diagnosed as a pylonydol cyst, an infection deep in the muscle that has to be operated on, drained and then packed. Honestly, up to that point in my life the tail bone cyst was the worst pain I had ever been in. I have had basic injuries from sports, broken my nose a few times, a few concussions, jammed fingers, banged elbows, etc. But nothing prepared me for the constant and continual pain of having a Mono sore throat.

That Tuesday morning I finally got in the truck and drove to Urgent Care. I knew something just wasn’t right. I had been sick for five days up to this point, almost twice as long as I had ever been sick before. When I arrived I had to fill out the standard forms and I began to sweat horrifically. I couldn’t believe the amount of sweat that was coming from my body. My hair began to get wet, and by the time they sent me back it had looked like I just hopped out of the shower.

They took the preliminary approach, checked my ears, throat, etc. I made sure to specify that I had already tested negative to the flu and strep, because I did not want to be tested again (that nose swab is not fun). I spoke with the Doctor first and she was concerned with the amount I was sweating so they took a blood test thinking maybe my thyroid was to blame. I finally mentioned to the nurse that we haven’t really considered Mono. And she agreeably said, “Well, I guess we better check you for that.”

So they drew another blood test and after I had already seen the Doctor a lady came in after some awaited time and expressed to me I was positive for Mononucleosis. It honestly came to me as a relief. After all the wondering I had done I was very curious to know what was wrong. The nurse came back with a steroid shot which she stuck me with, I assumed it would make me feel better in the next few hours, all to my disappointment nothing seemed to happen.

I went home after my visit and I tried to get some amount of rest. I might have slept 30 minutes the night before and I just wanted a nice deep sleep. I was taking anti-inflammatory medicine as much as I could but nothing was dulling the pain. Mid-day transitioned to night and I did not sleep a wink.

By Wednesday, in the peak of my sickness, I stayed home from the church and simply could do nothing but lay on my stomach and let the drool run out of my mouth because it was too painful to swallow. My wife tried her best to feed me soup but I just could not eat. At one point that day I sat at the kitchen table for what seemed like hours trying to eat some Chicken Noodle Soup and tears just began to stream down my face from the indescribable pain. I could not physically swallow. I had to spit in the sink or in a cup to keep from wincing in pain.

By this time I was desperate for anything. After not sleeping Tuesday night and Wednesday night Thursday came with no rest at all. I bared it all I could until night began to fall on Thursday evening. I didn’t know how much help I could get at the hospital but I was willing to try anything. It seemed like everyone I talked to just kept saying the same thing, “Mono just has to run its course, it will take time.” Well, by the time you haven’t slept in two days and your throat still is a 12/10 in terms of pain, you will go to great lengths to get relief.

My wife was out to dinner for a work function and I told her I am going to the Emergency Room for some relief, I could not bare it a moment longer. Call me a wimp or whatever you would like but until you’ve been there you can’t relate to how bad it actually is. My wife had asked me to wait at least until she got home from dinner, I agreed and said that was fine. She got home about an hour later and we drove to the hospital.

Once we got checked in to the hospital they began to check my vitals and questioning me on what seemed to be the problem. After my thorough explanation of what treatment I received from the Urgent Care and how I was feeling they were very kind in attempting to treat my pain. To my surprise by the Doctor’s kindness they gave a dose of Morphine and began to run fluids through my IV in fear of dehydration. To be honest, the Morphine did absolutely nothing for my pain. It didn’t even touch it. They kept asking me how I felt and I tried to politely explain to them that I was still in extreme pain.

At this point I think the Doctor believed I was in pain but didn’t realize perhaps how severe it really was. All of the hospital staff was extremely kind but it’s hard to gauge each patient in their pain tolerance. After a few hours of tests, cat scans, x-rays, fluids in the body etc. The Doctor came back to ask me again how the pain was. I shared with him again that I was still feeling intense pain and felt almost no relief.

After this the Doctor was very kind again and gave me more Morphine, but once again it really did nothing in terms of helping my pain. After about a 4-5 hour stay he came back again and was compassionate but more or less expressing that there was not much he could do. Sad and downtrodden I accepted that it would be another sleepless night.

They were just about ready to discharge me and as they do by procedure the nurse began to check my blood pressure, when she looked at the numbers 185 over 110 (keep in mind I have never had high blood pressure in my life) she gasped and shared with us the Doctor would not release us with that high of a blood pressure. She informed and reassured that she would be back with some new orders.

The Doctor came back with the nurse and had conveyed a more serious tone and had also affirmed that I must be in severe pain if my blood pressure was that high. After they had gone away for awhile they came back with two or three things to put in my IV. One, I know was a steroid and the other I believe was another type of pain medicine. After this dose of whatever it was, I FINALLY for the first time in 72 hours had a little relief. Shortly after this they allowed us to go home and I slept for the first time in over two days.

I woke up the next morning around 8:00am sleeping a total of maybe 5 hours, the Doctor was very kind and gave me a prescription of Hydrocodone and Steroids. I went that morning to go pick up the prescription and when I arrived the Pharmacist informed me they had another prescription for my sinuses. By this time I had attracted a sinus infection as well.

The main symptoms I was experiencing a week into the sickness were by and large a severe soar throat, profuse sweating, major weakness and fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, loss of diet, pain in my side. Along the time line of sickness I really didn’t start to feel relief in my throat until Wednesday or so of the following week which would have made just under two weeks from the beginning of my major symptoms.

During this time all I did was rest, rotating from the recliner to the bed watching TV and trying to keep my mind off of my state of pain. I ate, for the most part, tomato soup and tried my best to drink hot tea with lemon and local honey. I think I developed an allergic reaction to my oral steroids because my tongue began to swell up very large and cause immense discomfort. So I stopped taking the steroids about half-way through the allotted prescription and relied on anti-inflammatory medication and scattered use of hydrocodone (mainly before bed and before meals).

By Thursday (exactly two weeks from the first major symptom) I finally began to get relief from my sore throat. The fatigue and weakness in the body stayed for another week or so but the total amount of time it truly took for me to recover was a solid three weeks. Sometimes I still wander if I am fully recovered because I still have pain in my side sometimes and I noticed my vision is a little worse than before. I felt my vision fade a little before I had gotten sick but for some odd reason my eye-sight does seem more foggy than it was before I got sick.

All of this to finally express to you that there is hope. However long it may seem that you feel like dying, there will come a day where you will feel better. At certain points (like 3:00am on a week night whilst in terrible pain) I did not know for certain if I could pull through, but I read stories like this one and they encouraged me. They shed some light on dark times when you wander, “Will I ever get through this?” I also want to make sure you know not everyone experiences Mono the same. You may not have certain symptoms that I had, we all display the virus differently. I truly hope that your experience is not as bad as mine seemed to be. God bless you and I pray for a speedy recovery to anyone who experiences this awful virus we call Mononucleosis.

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