A Journey Few Will Take Can you imagine having something called POTS? No, all you recreational drug users, I don't do pot; I have POTS -- Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. Standing sends my normal heart rate into marathon mode - within minutes, I also have vasovagal syncope - sometimes my blood pressure gets so low that I pass out. Medical symptoms have plagued my entire childhood and they robbed me of my adolescence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned" Get an original essay. a path of countless diagnoses and misdiagnoses that have affected my entire life. This thing has no boundaries. It has interrupted tons of school days, hockey and soccer games, ski trips, vacations and has changed every aspect of my life to tender. age 3, a simple trip to the mall would reveal the first real glimpse of what was to come. I was in the middle of KFC, when suddenly I got up, announced that I wasn't feeling well, and passed out while cleaning the lady's laundry bucket. The germs in the bucket were the least of the worries that the accident foreshadowed. Fast forward 2 years; It's 9:05, first grade. We all get up from our desks. “O Canada” rings out: I don't feel well. I need to sit down. No, I have to stay silent. I feel dizzy. *Thud*. My head connects to the bookcase and all is silent. I “wake up”, my head is pounding and my mother is in my class. The adults all have such serious looks on their faces. I raise my hand to feel the bruise swelling above my forehead. My mom takes my hand and says we have to go home. I can barely walk. The next day I go back to school. My friends surround me with unlimited questions. I don't want to talk about it, I just want to pretend it never happened; I don't like attention. These “episodes” repeat themselves countless times, but each circumstance is a little different. Medical visits, numerous hospital admissions, EEG, EKG, CT scans, MRI scans, ECG, biopsies; blood, DNA and chromosome analysis; X-rays, emergency visits, IVs and operations. I remember the dress that the nurse once handed me. I remember thinking, "I'm a guy, don't they have pajamas?" I remember the smells: absolutely sterile. I remember feeling so small on the operating table that I wanted to ask for my mother, but I knew I had to be brave; it would soon be over. I woke up in pain. I just want to go home. When can I go home Yet, I'm one of the lucky ones If you walk the halls of Sick Kids, you see the faces of death. IV pole too large for a child to operate. Tubes and tubes coming out of all directions, bags of all sizes and colors, and the look on parents' irritated faces give the situation away. The beep breaks the silence as the machine sounds the end. How much more can that little body take? It is in these moments that I am grateful that my path is not the same. So many tests and yet no concrete answers; diagnoses and misdiagnoses 50 doctors have examined me or my ever-growing medical record. Finally, I met Dr. Guzman, who 5 minutes into the exam, stated that he thought he knew some of what was wrong - and he did. A simple tilt table test showed that I had dysautonomia, dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Unfortunately, the autonomic nervous system controls a lot: temperature, bowel function,.