By Alvin Alexander. Last updated: February 19, 2021
Today (February 19th) is an anniversary for me. After knowing “something” was wrong for a long time — I used to tell doctors it felt like I had been poisoned or was experiencing the symptoms of anaphylaxis or sepsis — I went unconscious for the first time on this date in 2014.
While that in many ways was a horrible event — if I had fallen to the right instead of the left when I blacked out, I probably would have cracked my head on the bathtub and died right then — in the end it was necessary for doctors (and I) to take things more seriously, which resulted in seeing a total of 26 doctors to learn that I have MCAS, a rare but treatable non-contagious blood disease (something I was born with).