Agonizing Pain For Over a Year

by Don H
(Mobile, AL, USA)

I've been having abdominal pain, mostly the left side and middle, since March 12, 2011.

It's not going away, and only seems to be getting worse. I don't have insurance, no way to get anywhere, and maybe $5.00 to my name.

I've tried the hospital, but I was seen by the same doctor twice, and both times he said it was constipation (although nothing showed up in the x-ray which would give any indication that there is a blockage; he even admitted as much) and refused to do further diagnostics.

The health department told me I should get a CT scan because x-rays are not intended to observe soft tissues. They told me the hospital would probably be the only way I could afford that.

No such luck. Each time the hospital did an x-ray, and sent me home with a $250 bottle of magnesium citrate. It's a little over a dollar at Wal-Mart. Now I owe the hospital around $500, and they didn't do a thing for me.


This past week, I've been waking up to panic attacks due to the intensity of the pain. I've applied for disability three times, this last time with a lawyer, and I've been denied three times. I don't have the strength or will to fight anymore. Going to the hospital, going to the health department, all for nothing. I don't go out at all anymore, and I often feel like death is the only way out. I just can't continue living in torment every single day. Absolute hopelessness and despair. I feel like if I can't help myself, no one will, so I attended college for three semesters. It was very difficult to get there, and I had to get up at 4:00am just to get to the bus stop. I thought that surely if I made straight A's, someone would think I'm worth helping. Wrong again. I never attended a day of school that I wasn't sick, often throwing up in the bathroom between classes. Emptying my stomach of all contents seems to help, and I can stomach only one meal per day.

Just after the hearing, I started having migraine headaches again...I don't know if it's related to the abdominal pain or not. It could be caused by toothaches, because all of the throwing up has caused cavities right at the gumline. It's like I haven't seen a new dawn since March 12, 2011, and I'm still waiting for this nightmarish day to end.

I used to pray that I'd get better, then I prayed that my heart would cease beating as I slept, now I don't pray at all. I'm just alone. My family acts like I'm not even there, as if I'm a ghost, doubled over clutching my stomach, ice pack on the back of my neck, moaning in agony. I live with my grandparents, and my grandfather is the one who has to take me to the doctor. He's 90 years old and not exactly in peak condition himself, but he's in much better shape than I am physically.


As a child I was abused daily. I suffered through that, just to end up in an even worse situation. It just doesn't seem right, when I see everyone else around me smiling and laughing. My friend applied for disability and got it, though he uses the money to go out and party, drink, and buy things he WANTS, not things he NEEDS. He just bought a new guitar, isn't that great? I asked the judge to please send me to a specialist, if nothing else. No such luck. It seems I'm out of options; the judge basically consigned me to death, or even worse, a life of torment.

Lately I've been too sick to even let him come by, the only friend that still cares enough to visit the shadow of his former friend.
There must be some other way out of this situation. My extended family (uncles, aunts) aren't going to help because they think it's "God's will." It's like living in a third world country, or the twilight zone.