Gut Instincts

Have you ever felt or knew that something was wrong with you, but you just couldn't put your finger on what it was?
That started to happen to me when I was grade 10. I was a relatively healthy person until then, I was active in gymnastics, dancing lessons, school sports and theatre. But one morning I got up early for a gymnastics practice at school and skipped breakfast.
I was starving during my second period class so I ate an orange, and by third period I was in the nurse's room with the worst abdominal pain I had ever had. She told me it was because I ate the orange on an empty stomach, but who doesn't eat fruit for breakfast? It didn't make sense to me.
The pain never went away from that day on, and I was a frequent visitor at my family doctors office.
He thought the pain was ovulation. Everyday? I didn't think so.
I was also experiencing joint pain that I had never had before, especially in my knees. Once when I went back and complained about it, he told me it was from tap dancing.
I said "I have been tap dancing for years and never had this problem before", he said "Tap dancing can be very, very dangerous you know, you could fall into the sink!". Funny, but not the help I was looking for.

I just kept getting sicker and sicker, and every fiber of my being told me that there was something serious going on, but help wasn't going to come from him.