Nausea, dizziness, low blood pressure, pain, anxiety and panic attacks are the symptoms and reasons why I have a personal pharmacy in my backpack. They are the reasons why my backpack is my personal pharmacy.

I am a full-time student, which means I am on campus and away from my apartment on a daily basis. I have to have these certain medications in my backpack. I have to carry these medications with me on a daily basis otherwise, I can’t be a full-time college student. I wouldn’t have succeeded in college without my pharmacy in my backpack.

First, I would like to explain how lucky I feel that I am able to get these medications to help my symptoms. I am thankful, that I have “somewhat” found a good doctor that I can trust to provide care for me. Even though, I still feel like he doesn’t fully listen to me. Or that he doesn’t fully understand me or my situation. Sometimes, I wish I would just tell him about my blogs that I write for. Then, maybe, just maybe, he would understand a little bit better.

Now, I would like to move on to saying how glad I am to have this backpack to carry around this mini pharmacy with me on a daily basis. It has literally saved my college career and future. As I said before, I wouldn’t be a full-time student if I didn’t or couldn’t carry around my medications with me every day.

My medications have saved me countless times in the middle of class, work, in between meetings and work, in between meetings and class, in between class and work, in the middle of meetings, etc. You get the picture.

It has also prevented me from going to the emergency room too. If I am on campus, in the middle of a flare-up or anxiety/panic attack, I NEED my medication. Like, I NEED it. Otherwise there is no getting better. That and rest, I usually need to rest.

I remember one flare-up in particular when I had forgot my medication, it was a nightmare. The flare-up came out of nowhere and I didn’t have my medication. Do you know how scared I was? I had no idea what to do! And I was alone. It was also soon after I was diagnosed, like I was probably only living with a diagnosis of POTs for about six months at the time. So, I was and still am very “new” at how I should take care of myself and what I should do in situations like that.

What I did was, I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to relax a little bit. However, this was very difficult, especially without medication to help my body get back into working again. Without medication to help regulate my autonomic nervous system again. My symptoms only continued to get worse and I didn’t feel strong enough to walk back to my dorm to get the medication, so I went into my First-Year Seminar Professors’ office since it happened to be a couple of feet away and she had known about my diagnosis.

Alice was very helpful. She kept asking me questions and distracting me from how I was physically feeling. She kept making sure I was breathing and reassured me that I “actually” didn’t look that well. Sometimes, when you are not feeling well, you actually do like to look like you are not feeling well. She said that I looked “woozy.” And I will never forget that for some reason.

At that time, she was the first professor to see me in the middle of a flare-up and she had no idea how grateful I was for her supportive words and just the fact that she cared and tried to help in anyway she could.

I ended up sitting in her office for almost an hour. We talked and she helped me feel a little bit better with the distraction. But also it gave me time to rest this flare-up “away” a little bit. I felt like I maybe had enough strength to walk about two blocks to my dorm without collapsing. And I did! She gave me the strength and confidence that I needed to “simply” walk to my dorm.

However, this only proves my point. And my point is, for everyone that lives with a physical or mental illness/disability needs to always be prepared. Always.