I’m not sure how I have the balls to go to Europe, but I’m determined to find out what is growing in my brain and why I have lost so much of its function. I have a long list of symptoms like severe fatigue, which is made worse from physical exercise, an inability to focus, calculation difficulties, memory disturbance, difficulty with word retrieval, frequently saying the wrong word, anxiety at night, insomnia, migraines, changes in visual acuity, numbness in my right hand, light-headedness, ringing in my ears, muscle weakness, intolerance to bright lights, non-restorative sleep, recurrent flu-like symptoms, swollen lymph nodes, muscle aches, burning joint pain, dry eyes, a severe cough, hair loss, and slight Bell’s palsy in my face. The rings under my eyes that accompany my severe migraines show up every three weeks like clockwork. Doesn’t that sound like it’s a cycle of something? I’m not a doctor, but this feels infection-related to me, and I’m not going to take no for an answer. I keep telling myself that doctors are humans, too; they do make mistakes. I need to keep trusting my own intuition.
When Tom and I arrive at LAX, he gets me a wheelchair and pushes me through the airport. Even though I feel horrible, I look normal, so it’s a little bit embarrassing to use a wheelchair, but I honestly can’t make it through the security line and to the gate on foot.
I’m happy once we make it to the plane. I get settled and take out my earplugs and eye mask, thinking I’m going to take some melatonin and sleep a big dent into this twelve-hour journey. However, forty-five minutes into the flight, I start feeling sweaty and unwell. The altitude and rising pressure in the cabin cause some sort of inflammatory reaction in my brain, and I can feel a bad migraine coming on. The pain quickly gets intense, and my eyesight gets very blurry.
“Can you please get me three Excedrin Migraine pills and some ice packs?” I ask Tom. The pain is stabbing and unbearable, numbed only by the multiple ice packs the flight attendants bring me.
My body feels freezing cold. I try hard not to shiver because that hurts my head even more. Two hours into the flight, I break out in a high fever. The flight attendants are kind and helpful, but they don’t really know what to do, so they ask the other passengers if there is a doctor on board. They find one, a man with a sweet face who is asking me questions.
He suggests that the flight attendants hook me up to an oxygen tank and continue to put ice on my head. All I can think about is my children. When I get scared, thinking of them soothes me, and inhaling the oxygen calms my nerves. What’s going on with my body? Do chronic fatigue patients have fevers like this? Do their brains blow up like balloons? I’m not sure, but I do know that this is the most unbearable plane ride I’ve ever been on, not just because of the pain but also because of the unknown that suffocates my mind. I need clarity. I need to understand what is going on in my body that doesn’t feel like mine any longer.
My loud, chronic cough is embarrassing. I can feel the other passengers looking at me, but I can’t control it. I curl up into a fetal position and try to meditate; the rhythm in my breathing somehow calms me as I drift in and out of sleep. Next thing I know, I wake to Tom’s gentle hand on my shoulder and realize that we’re already at the gate, but my seat is still reclined all the way back.
“What happened?” I ask him.
“After ten and a half hours, you finally fell asleep,” he says. “The flight attendants said it was okay not to wake you and let you land with your chair flat down.” Then Tom lets out a really deep sigh.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I was really nervous,” he admits. “In twenty-five years, I’ve never heard you cry or complain like that. It was scary, and at one point I worried that they were going to run out of ice, the only thing that seemed to help you.” I feel drained, and my clothes are moist from the fever. I’m afraid to lift my head from the pillow and ice packs, but we make our way off the plane.
After a brief taxi ride, we finally arrive and check into our hotel. In my room, I take off my smelly clothes and sit on the shower floor and let the hot water run over the top of my head. I just need to sit and defrost for a while before I go to sleep. Although I’ve been dreaming about getting french fries with mayo, I’m not hungry. So instead I order a cup of hot tea and a plate of cookies. I call my mom, who still worries when I fly, to let her know I arrived safely. I text David and my kids to tell them the same thing. I don’t mention what happened on the flight because I don’t want to worry them unnecessarily about something that doesn’t make any sense at this time. I am physically exhausted but filled with excitement about meeting this new doctor tomorrow.
I really hope I can sleep through the night. Maybe I should take some more migraine medicine to prevent another attack. That pain was unbearable, and I’m afraid it will happen again. What would I do? Who would I call? I guess I can always have the concierge call a local doctor, but I’m too tired to worry about it now. I just need to sleep.
The next morning, I wake up very early. I open the window. It’s still dark outside. Of course, I feel hungry because I haven’t really eaten since I left Malibu, but the nurses from Dr. De Meirleir’s office asked me to show up with an empty stomach for my early-morning blood draw. I watch the sunrise, but I feel so exhausted that I can barely focus on the beautiful golden light or imagine its healing power clearing my cells as it enters my body. I throw on some sweats and wait for Tom to come by my room and pick me up. We make our way to the Himmunitas Clinic and finally meet Dr. De Meirleir. He is very soft-spoken and speaks to me in my mother language with a sweet Belgian accent. I instantly feel a sense of hope and take this as a sign that I might find an answer to my suffering. Although I have lost the old me, I haven’t lost my type A personality, which I have applied to the goal of getting well. For example, since my brain function started failing, I often can’t tell my own medical history in detail, Tom and I created a big, well-organized binder with each doctor’s reports and lab results. Before we left Los Angeles, Tom scanned all these files and put them in a Dropbox file, something that I can’t quite figure out yet, but it seemed a lot easier than sending the entire binder by FedEx to Dr. De Meirleir to review before today’s appointment.
“In forty years, I’ve never seen a medical workup as extensive as yours,” Dr. De Meirleir says. “But even with all these fancy test results, I still don’t have the clarity of a diagnosis or a defined answer as to how to treat you.”
“So it’s not chronic fatigue?” I ask.
“There isn’t enough evidence of that.” He shakes his head. “It seems like that diagnosis was made based on symptoms, but not with a clear cause. I’ll have to do my own tests with the labs that I work with here in Europe.”
“Okay,” I say. I’m frustrated, but I’m up for anything that will give me some clarity.
“It will take six weeks to get the results,” Dr. De Meirleir adds. Six weeks? Are you kidding? I don’t have six weeks. I really need to get better yesterday! I had imagined that I was coming to Belgium to meet this world-renowned chronic fatigue expert who would give me a magic pill to make me feel better. I guess that was just a dream! The idea that I have to wait another six weeks for a diagnosis is overwhelming and disappointing. How many more tests can I do? Dr. De Meirleir orders a variety of blood, saliva, and urine tests, and I make my way back to the hotel like a puppy with my tail between my legs.
The only good part of my day is seeing my mom and Leo, who drive two hours from Holland to be with me. My mom immediately pulls all my favorite foods from her grocery bag, then orders some hot coffee and tea from room service. I usually talk to my mom and Leo on FaceTime, so they know how sick I have been, but they haven’t seen me in person since my wedding just a year earlier. To strangers, I look perfectly normal. However, my mom sees right through to the core of me and is trying to hide her reaction to my physical appearance. I can tell it’s hard for her to see me this way. I’m so exhausted that I can’t even take them out to lunch or dinner, but the greatest thing is that we don’t need to do anything or go an
ywhere. Being together in my little hotel room is enough; this is the true love of family that I was raised with. We lie in bed and reminisce about our childhood stories. They make me laugh and I feel happy with a cup of coffee and my favorite Dutch cakes Momma brought me. On days like this, I realize how very much I miss my family and how very alone I have felt this past year. I don’t have any blood relatives in America besides my children, and, no matter how old I am, there is something very calming and comforting about having my family by my side. Their presence is the only thing that makes me feel better in Belgium. All I really want to do is go to Momma’s house in Holland, curl up on her couch, and eat my favorite cheese sandwiches and french fries until I feel normal again, but I can’t leave my children one day longer than I have to, so Tom and I fly home to Los Angeles two days later.
The next six weeks feel like an eternity. During this time, I go through periods of feeling really bad for ten days, then feeling a little better and pushing hard for a couple of days, only to find myself back in bed for another five. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to this madness. No matter how long I stay in bed and try to preserve my energy, I never wake up feeling refreshed, just tired and burnt out in the morning. When I meditate on exactly what it is that I’m experiencing, I feel like the energy is being pulled from the core of my body through my feet into the earth.
In the midst of this, there is the premiere party for my first season on the Housewives. I haven’t gotten dressed up in months, but I have to show up to this mandatory event. Both David and Tom will join me, and I’m grateful for this because going to a party is not something I can do on my own right now. Dusty, my makeup artist, and a hairdresser come to my house to help me get ready. I can barely sit in the chair, but somehow their magic makes me look presentable. They help me get into my gorgeous, hot pink Roberto Cavalli dress, and out the door to the Roosevelt Hotel we go. The minute I step on the red carpet, fifty cameras start flashing at the same time, which immediately puts my brain in overdrive. I make it to the end of the carpet, but my body is sweating and I feel shaky. All of a sudden, I feel faint, so I quickly walk behind the step and repeat wall, where I can lie down. Why am I so weak? Why did I push myself so hard to be here? What’s wrong with me? Is this worth it? And whose body is this? It certainly doesn’t feel like mine.
Alex Baskin brings me a cool cloth and a glass of ginger ale. As soon as I catch my breath, I want to go home and David and I walk back to the limo. I’m barefoot. I climb into the backseat, remove my jewelry, rip off my false lashes, and take out the fifty bobby pins that are keeping my fake ponytail and fancy hairdo together. Ugh. I hate my hair extensions. All this shit is just a mask of who I’m not. I hate my life in my body right now. I lie down on my back, staring at the car ceiling in the dark and dead silence, trying to digest what just happened. When I get home, I make my way up the stairway to my bedroom and turn on the shower. The hot running water on the crown of my head cleanses me energetically. How am I going to make my way out of this? When I get out of the shower, I walk over to the sink to brush my teeth and suddenly catch a glimpse of my reflection. It’s hysterical and I start laughing at how deadly scary I look with black mascara smeared down my cheeks to the top of my upper lip. I look like a ghost. The funny thing is that right now I look exactly the way that I feel, but, of course, the next day when the premiere party photos hit the press, they tell a very different story, one that is merely a perception and very far from the truth about what is actually going on in my life. I look perfect from the outside. My pink Cavalli gown brings color to my white pasty skin, and all the weight that I lost from being sick makes my body appear perfect in photographs. But who cares?
I retreat to the endless days of staring at the ceiling, counting the perfectly aligned light fixtures. I marked those fixtures precisely myself back when I was building my supposed dream home, a house that is starting to feel like a jail. It’s crazy to think that I used to stress obsessively about the detail and placement of lightbulbs that I’m now forced to stare at day in and day out. I ask myself “Why?” and “How?” often, but I guess those answers will reveal themselves in time when they’re supposed to, not when I decide I need them. I’m feeling impatient. I need to work on that, but I’m sure we’re going to figure this out soon so I can get back in the saddle and back to my life—which is currently at a standstill. Thank God for my great and generous friends who continue to send me flowers. It makes me feel like I live in a flower store, and their beautiful little notes of love and support keep me going. They mean the world to me.
David is busy 24-7, but thankfully his studio is downstairs in our house, so he often comes up just to give me a kiss and check on me. He has started to keep a diary of my journey and takes great pride in writing a couple of lines in my aqua leather-bound book. We laugh often about the silly things that come out of my mouth.
One night, around two o’clock, I wake up to go to the bathroom. This is not unusual. My sleeping patterns are terrible, and it’s normal for me to get up every two or three hours feeling a strange sense of anxiety. I know every inch of this house so I don’t even turn on the light when I enter my little toilet room. Suddenly, I feel really sick and my head starts spinning. Before I can sit down on the toilet, my body collapses. My forehead hits the small table in the corner as I fall to the floor. The loud sound in the silence of the night wakes David and he comes running into the bathroom.
“Yo, are you okay? Yo?” I hear his voice in what seems like the far distance, but I feel paralyzed and can’t respond. My head is throbbing and on fire. Something warm is running over my face and down to my neck. I’m not fully conscious and feeling very far away. Apparently, David can’t open the toilet-room door because my body is pressed up against it from the inside. Minutes later, the door gently pushes my body over just enough for David to wiggle his way in.
“Baby, are you okay?” he asks. He turns on the light, and I can see in his face that something is wrong. Tom, who is staying with us, is right behind him.
“Get some ice packs and the first-aid kit,” David says calmly to Tom. David gets a washcloth and starts compressing an open cut on top of my left eyebrow to stop the bleeding.
“Do you have pain anywhere else besides your head?” he asks. I feel paralyzed and start crying because I don’t know what happened to me. I try to be a good sport, but I’m scared. What is going on with me? Because it’s my face and the wound is deep, Tom calls our friend Brian Novack, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. Of course, he is sleeping, so it takes a little while for him to return the call, but as soon as we connect, Dr. Novack gets his friend Dr. Lancer to meet me at his office, where he puts twelve stitches in my forehead, official proof of my warrior status. Thankfully, it is right at the start of my six-month hiatus from the Housewives, and cameras aren’t rolling.
October 23, 2012
Beverly Hills Housewife Down
Thank you @drnovack and @drlancer for stitching my head at 6 AM.
I guess no need to dress for Halloween.
Just a week later, I have to pull myself together to take part in a deposition for Paige’s divorce. It’s been a bitter, ugly one, and she needs me as a character witness and to recall a timeline of events. My close friends mean the world to me, and I’ll do anything for them, especially Paige, who is going through hell. This is why I get up and dressed even though every part of my body hurts, my eyesight is blurry, and I can barely stand up. Paige picks me up, and we drive more than an hour to Ventura to her lawyer’s office.
“The fact that I’m asking you to do this when you feel the way that you do is embarrassing,” Paige says. “But you’re the only witness I have.”
“I know,” I say. “It’s okay. I love you.” Once we get there, I spend six hours being drilled by her ex-husband’s lawyers. I need to take a few breaks, but I work through it the best that I can.
“I wouldn’t be able to survive this divorce if it weren’t for you scraping me off the pavement,” Paige sa
ys in the car on the way home. I know she would do the same for me.
As I wait the six weeks for Dr. De Meirleir’s diagnosis, I decide to focus on my diet, even though I don’t have much of an appetite. Laurie Stark, the mother of one of Bella’s best friends, Jessie Jo, hears that I am sick. She suggests I see her nutritionist, David Allen, who finds alternative solutions for various health issues. From unique and very sensitive tests to uncover food allergies and intolerance, I learn that I’m allergic to many foods, including pears, oats, peas, lentils, mushrooms, lobster, brewer’s yeast, soybeans, egg whites, peanuts, cola, cabbage, pistachios, and barley. David Allen also finds really high levels of heavy metals in my blood.
Believe Me Page 6