I don't even strictly need it as my situation is currently allowing me the time to farm the gold if I were somewhat more inclined, I just want (and like) to share my own story since there's not many people I have to talk about it with IRL. Sorry if it's long.
I've got ulcerative colitis, if you don't feel like looking that up then I can tell you it's exactly what it sounds like. Ulcers in my colon. It's a lifelong condition, only 'cure' is the removal of affected intestine so that's not really desirable. It is somewhat manageable however with medication. That's the setup.
In August I was hit with a boatload of stress regarding a number of different things of varying levels of importance. It was basically my perfect storm. Unfortunately this had the effect of kicking my UC into overdrive, I was shitting 10+ times a day and it was frequently blood. I had to take time off work (eventually just quit as I've yet to be able to go back), lack of incoming funds necessitated I move back in with my parents (not altogether a bad idea, living alone would have been pretty bad at times) and I was in an enormous amount of pain.
The silver lining here was that I was supposed to see my doctor for a regular checkup in early September so I toughed it out rather than do a walk in somewhere or go to the ER. I'm stubborn that way and surely I wasn't in such bad shape that I had to take a hospital bed from someone with a dildo stuck 7 feet up their ass. End of August I call to confirm the appointment and find out that the doctor is 3 months behind and my appointment was bumped to December. So I'm still stubborn and decide to settle in for the long haul.
Huge mistake.
Things just get progressively worse for me, shitting more, shitting more frequently, shitting more blood, more and more pain, etc. It got to the point in October where I'd lost 30 pounds (I'm already rail thin for my height), I couldn't keep anything down or retain fluids. If it went in it was coming back out immediately, if it wasn't being shit out then I was vomiting it back up because of the abdominal pain.
So November 1st/2nd my mom finds me collapsed in the basement outside the bathroom, curled up in pain and basically as dehydrated as you can get without being dead. So it's off to the ER for me.
2 weeks in the hospital, here's the bullet points.
-first week was a pure liquid diet, continued losing weight and overall very unpleasant when you get to watch your roommate get actual food
-getting a feeding tube to be force fed 4 litres of bowel cleanser for a colonoscopy because you can't keep it down is a horrible sensation. I understand now why my grandpa chose to die after his stroke, ripping out his tube 3 times rather than put up with it.
-nurses are rarely on the same page as the doctors since I received morphine no less than 4 times for various complaints when I was strictly only allowed tylenol by my docs. (opiates interfere with bowel function)
-had a cardiac event while I was in there (persistent pulse of 200 bps while 'resting'), pretty amusing watching the entire nursing staff fly off the rails because they think an otherwise healthy 26 year old is going to have a heart attack. Got a lovely lifelong prescription out of that.
-Did you know there's a not fun kind of steroid? Yeah I was on an IV drip of the bad kind for the inflammation, still on the pill form in fact because it takes 3 months just to wean off of it.
-Did you know that this not fun kind of steroid kills your immune system? Yeah I have to take a hardcore anti biotic for the next 3 months.
-Additionally I'm on a drug called Remicade, costs $6000 a dose and REALLY kills my immune system in addition to a host of other lovely side effects. This is to help manage the UC.
There's more I could get into but my cereal is getting soggy. Basically I picked WoW back up because I'm still stuck around home recovering and I had a time card left from some while back. Money is tight as fuck since there's the meds I listed and more which (not counting the remicade) amount to around $50-$75 worth a day. Not only that but my dad was in the hospital 2 days after I got out for kidney stones so he hasn't been working, leaving my mom as sole bread winner in the family for the time being. Rough stuff when there's serious costs piling up.
All that being said my free time allows me to farm the WoW token if I so desired at the end of my sub but chances are I'll have to be working 2-3 jobs once I'm done my round of meds just to pay off some shit and move back out and won't have time to keep playing anyway, we'll see on that.