Teenage Years and Fighting Depression

So here we are. This is the chapter in which I really wanted to start writing and sharing my experiences in life. I didn’t deal with kidney disease too much throughout these years but another terrible sickness popped up and that was depression. I’ve long thought about what I’d say on this subject. This will most likely be my most personal post in this blog. In my opinion when discussing these things you have to be. Depression is a battle that many people face daily and let me say what I did during my teenage years wasn’t healthy. Everyone’s battle with this is different and we all cope in different ways but if you’re reading this and have the same or similar feelings please seek out a Psychiatrist or Counselor.

When I was a young teenager things were still great. I was riding the wave of my childhood, it was a new millennium and people were optimistic. I had routine lab work like always, every 6 weeks. And I still saw my Nephrologist every few months. As I got older I started having small fluctuations in my creatnine, which is how they measure how well your kidney functions. So every time it went up by a few digits I had to go in for a kidney biopsy. That’s where they put you under and take a small sample of the kidney to run tests on to ensure its functioning properly. And luckily my tests were all fine, if anything I just needed to update my meds. They still hurt a little bit though, just saying. But as I grew older my weight went way up and that meant more tweaking my meds. I’d go through all my teenage years having 3 biopsies in all.

I know many kidney parents out there who have decided to homeschool their young kidney warriors because of concerns about keeping kids germ free and healthy in a public environment. I totally understand that and what I’m about to talk about would totally validate those fears. But man, I had such a great time in middle school and high school. I still say the experience is worth it. If I hadn’t gone to public school I wouldn’t have met so many great friends and had so many experiences. I know my parents were worried at times. But it was so amazing getting to see and experience so much in those years. I thank my parents for allowing me to grow up the “normal” way instead of putting me in a bubble scared I’d catch something.

So do you remember in the last post how I talked about getting 4 shots everytime someone in my class had chickenpox? I used to always wonder why the measures were so severe to prevent me from getting it. I found out exactly why during my junior year in high school. By high school I guess the students weren’t watched as closely and they weren’t so strict on students reporting illness. Somebody had chickenpox and I came into contact with it. I’ll never know who or where or what class at school exactly, but that’s where I caught it. It all started like any other sickness for me, I felt run down, had a fever and couldn’t eat. Within a day after that I had a high grade fever and felt more run down that I had ever felt in my life. I went to the Dr and they said I had chickenpox. See when you get a kidney transplant, you have to be on immunosuppresive drugs to ensure your body doesn’t reject the new kidney. And when you have a low immune system these kinds of sickness can be very dangerous, deadly even. As I type this during the Coronavirus outbreak I’m again reminded why it’s imperative people like myself don’t catch these illnesses. They said since I was a kidney transplant patient I needed to get admitted to the hospital. No everyday cure was going to work and my body couldn’t simply fight it off on it’s own. Once I got admitted I had a IV put in and they got me started on some very strong medicine asap. The next day the side of my wrist was the size of a golf ball. The medicine they were using was so strong and they had to pump so much of it in me that it basically blew that vein and the IV couldn’t be used anymore. So since that wouldn’t work they put a PIC line in. It’s essentially a plastic tube the size of a vein. They put it in just like an IV except this little straw basically went inside the vein and up my arm, down my neck and directly into my heart. It was pretty crazy and definitely scary at that age. I got through it though with the strength of my parents by my side. As always family is what helped me feel better in the hospital. I can remember my mother staying with me and my Dad coming up there every single day to check on me. I still have a letter all my classmates wrote on that was sent to me. You’d be surprised at how much you cherish all those little things when you’re fighting for your life. I slowly felt a little better day by day. At the end of it all? 2 weeks in the hospital, right before Christmas in 2005. It was one terrible ride and scare. From that day forward I understood what certain illnesses could do to me. Luckily to this day I haven’t had another experience like that. Although I will say as I write this in 2020 it’s tough being a kidney patient. I’ve been in quarantine for 6 months now with no end in sight all due to a new virus. Had I not caught the chicken pox at 16 and dealt with all this I probably wouldn’t have taken this coronavirus seriously.

On the outside I looked alright. I had battled a couple things with my kidney and had chickenpox but other than those things I typically looked fine. But I wasn’t. I had depression. I started getting those feelings around 14, 15. Around those first real years of self awareness. I didn’t know what it was at the time. I figured I was just lazy and sad a lot. But I had a lot of things that slowly developed over the years. By my later teenage years I was severely depressed. And I was a miserable person at times. Looking back I think that’s what held me back in high school. I was just zoned out a lot and focused on just my school work a lot. I wasn’t very social. I always had to deal with bullies in school. I had my gum tissue grow as a side effect of my medication for my kidney. Did anyone under 18 understand that? No. Did they realize I had my gums cut in 2 gingevectomies because it was so bad? Did many even care that I had a kidney transplant? Nope. I just got special names like bubble boy. I was ridiculed for my looks, half the problems were medications like prednisone and neoral. But young folks don’t understand much of that world unless they’ve dealt with it themselves or know someone who has. That same thing goes for many conditions out there. But yeah, I got bullied a ton. I had low self esteem. And I was always limited in a way by my kidney problems. And all this slowly built up a lot of my depression. It added to it. Depression is pretty hereditary in my family. I believe it was passed on that way and my life experiences just added to that to create a perfect storm over time.

I can remember my grandmother taking me to see someone to get medication for it. I started on Cymbalta and it did help. But there was always something in my face that kept making me depressed. I pretty much went though a lot of the same depressive thoughts most teens have. Why can’t I find love? Why do things have to be so stressful? Why can’t I do this or that? Mostly basic stuff. As I got older, I started having bone issues. I can remember getting bone density scans at 14 years old. I grew up with terrible joint pain and growing pains. It wasn’t till later I realized the Prednisone that was helping keep my kidney healthy was messing my body up. I had to see a Rhumetologist at 18 and I was diagnosed with Ostiopenia. Which is something most don’t get till they’re 50. I also had flat feet. So a lot of things compounded that made simple everyday things like walking a lot or standing for a long period of time painful and miserable. This compounded my depression. It helped feed it. I never thought I’d start having issues like that at such a young age. But think of this, most people who are given prednisone for a problem typically aren’t having those problems till they’re 50 or over. I had been taking that medication since I was born. At 20 I started having problems that many don’t have till they’re at least 60 or 70. By the time most patients are on prednisone for 20 years they’re typically 60, 70 or 80 years old. I’m 31 now and I’ve been taking that medication all those years. I’ll talk about this more in a future post, but now at 31 I’ve already had a total hip replacement and a fusion done on my ankle with screws holding it together. It’s devastating.

So what does all that have to do with depression? Well they feed each other. I got depressed over me not being able to do what everyone around me could. I wanted so desperately to be able to be athletic. I wanted to be a football player, the coaches in middle school said I had one of the best arms and accuracy in my class. I was slowly being limited on my options. And it quickly devolved into me getting out less and less. Friends would consider me a flake and stop inviting me out not realizing I was staying home because I was so depressed. And the slow loss of many of my friends just drove my depression deeper. It was hard for me to get a job because of those pains. Again, I felt like a failure. I dug myself a pity pit and I was stuck there. Then once I was in that pit, all I could do was dwell. Dwell on why can’t I do this? Why can’t I get a job doing this or that? Why can’t I just be normal? I didn’t have any siblings to vent to. My grandmother was my lifeline during all those years. She also battled depression and because of that I was able to talk about it all more. But venting wasn’t a solution. I got to the point my antidepressant wasn’t helping. I switched to Lexapro and that helped me a bit. But I still felt so down. I was at a point that I was worrying about my labs more. I became a very negative person towards the end of my teenage years. I was miserable to the people around me and I didn’t even realize just how much I was hurting those closest to me. Worrying about my future constantly and so very frustrated that no matter how hard I kept trying to get out of that pit I couldn’t do it. I had one time where I looked at all my meds and thought to myself why do I keep fighting? What’s the point if I’m just going to keep having pain and medical issues and can’t be a normal member of society? These horrible toxic thoughts dominated my life for a long time. I’ll never go back to that person thankfully. I’ve grown and matured enough to realize how toxic I was and I don’t want to ever put myself or my friends and family in that place again. And I’d be lying if I said they still don’t sometimes, but I realized my purpose when I had to go through my second transplant. I had a friend who was able to lift me out of it and help me realize there was more to my story than all these negative things I’d dwell on. And that’s a story for next time.