I'm young. 18 years old to be exact, but my heart and mind say otherwise.
At a younger age I was never able to understand most things that were brought upon my life. I was constantly facing new struggles that kids I was surrounded by weren’t dealing with and may never have to. I grew up surrounded by medical terms, doctors, and hospitalizations. I became familiar with medication lists so long that they consumed 3 full pages.
My whole life I have been raised through challenges, broken dreams, and learning to adapt to new lifestyles time and time again. As I began to get older and wiser I learned to accept my fate in life, I learned to face difficulties with nothing but a positive outlook, and I learned that there is no way to change your past, but there are ways to make your present and future worthwhile.
There have been times where I was not able to keep my vigorous frame of mind. In these moments I would feel myself slowly drowning in sorrow, defeat, but most of all, guilt. I felt guilty because, even though I may not have been in the best situation, I was far better off than some people in this world. These are the moments that have helped define who I am. People will hear my infectious laugh during my most difficult intervals, I will have an everlasting smile on my face when all I want to do is break down, and no matter what is going on in my life, I am always putting forth the effort into making others happy.
For me to be able to say that I am satisfied with myself, life, and all of its entities is a wondrous feeling and gift. Every day I fight the odds and live with a mad, passionate determination, which no matter what, will never be destroyed.
I’m young. 18 years old to be exact, but my heart and mind say otherwise.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

We can only hope, right?


I am here -- club med, my second home, whatever you want to call it. It's now 9:16 PM on Thursday and I've been here since last Friday. Kayla brought me up and I'm so thankful for that. It made a very stressful, draining situation into something a lot more tolerable. She not only drove me up here, but she carried all of my bags, stayed for several hours after I was settled into my room and asked continuously if I needed anything -- she's a saint. 
I typically don't like the first day/night of being admitted. There's the port access and then the team of nurses, doctors and residents that all go over and ask the same routine questions. Everything generally takes a couple of hours and through-out all of it, the only thing I can think about is how bad I want to be left alone so I can sleep. This was the first time since switching to U of M that someone hasn't gotten my port accessed on the first try. I knew it was a miss as soon as the needle went in. I mean, it's a one inch needle being pushed directly into my skin, how can I not know? I bled quite a bit after the needle was removed and, being myself, I was goofing around and said (a bit too loud) "I'm bleeding out!" I wish I could tell you that a bunch of nurses came running in because that would be a great story, but that didn't happen. The second try was a success and I had a beautiful blood return. 
The first few days were rough, as always. I was extremely exhausted, my fevers weren't going away, my O2 was lower and wouldn't come up, I had no appetite and I was beyond stressed about school. I had a bunch of work to make up within the next two days but my eyes were burning and I broke down crying from exhaustion and stress more than once. I finally caught up and decided that I am not going to take classes next semester. I need a break. Even if it's just from school, I need something. The semester is almost over and I am quite proud of myself with the grades that I have despite how many times I have fallen ill. 
My sinus surgery was supposed to be on April 1st, but has been rescheduled for this coming up Monday, the 25th. Dr. Simon and the ENT want the surgery to be in the middle of my course of antibiotics rather than towards the end to help make sure there's no infection like last time. I did a terrible thing and watched septoplasty procedures on Youtube...don't ask me why. It's not like I didn't have enough anxiety about it already. What the heck is wrong with me? On a positive note, my mom and Kayla will be there and Kayla promised to hold me while I cry and bleed all over her ;).
As of right now, I'm definitely doing a lot better than when I came in. My white count was 25 on admission and then kept going down more and more and is currently at 10, which is great. Apparently there's not air moving through the upper and middle lobe of my left lung, which would explain my pain on that side. Last time this happened on my right side, I ended up having a collapsed lung, but I think they caught it early enough and I've been getting CPT extra on my left side. There's still pain, so I'm not sure what the verdict is, but I guess we'll just have to wait it out and see. I'm only using oxygen when I sleep and I've been able to walk around more and more without getting short of breath. My magnesium is running low, but that has seemed to been a problem the past few times I've been admitted. Simon told me it could be because of the antibiotics and them messing with my kidney functions.
I'm hoping that after the sinus surgery, things will start to turn around a bit. I think I've been getting so many infections because of nasal drainage and since there's Pseudomonas in my sinuses, it's then going to my lungs and causing flare ups.
Ahhh well, we can only hope, right?



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