even though I had been living with considerable pain for a decade, I tried not to talk about it. I didn't want coworkers, boyfriends, friends or even strangers thinking I was weak, whiny, or otherwise sick. I kept thinking that if only doctors could figure out what I had, they could cure it, and I could move on to enjoying my success and traveling the world. But faced with the new found knowledge that what I had didn't have a cure, and that it could actually get exponentially worse, I made the choice to really buckle down and see as much of the world as possible before my health seriously deteriorated.