After struggling with the first five years or so of my illness so I could finally acquire an accurate diagnosis of my debilitating health problems (now that was a brutal five years), I knew I needed a break from medical appointments. Five solid years of medical appointments every few days... involving quite a few painful, invasive tests... is enough. I quickly came up with a new rule... absolutely no medical appointments through the summer... June through September. I need a break... I need to enjoy life... I need to focus on me, not my health. For the most part, I've been successful with this rule over the past ten years. Sometimes, however, a rule must be broken. This is one such summer when this rule needed to be broken. As a result, my summer is now over and it is back to business, as usual. My business since procuring this insidious illness is managing medical exams, medical testing and medical care. We've been to the ophthalmologist five or six times in the past week
