Maybe I'm a cat, because nobody has this many lives.
I'm back (and I'm wordy).
After ten years of overall good health (forgetting the broken legs and three collapsed lungs), I was recently slammed HARD with pneumonia. It all happened so fast, too.
Two weeks ago I thought I had a bad cold. I believed that a day or two in the lung would fix everything. The only medical attention I needed was from my Nurse Dobler, who had been caring for me by keeping me company and relieving my fever by applying juice bottles and frozen crescent rolls to my neck, back and forehead. Little did I know that hours later I'd be calling my mother and asking to come home. I knew something was wrong, and I knew I needed to go to the hospital.
But once I was in the emergency room, things got worse. My X-ray was clear. What?! No. That couldn't be. I'm never wrong. My right lung ached, and I swore that I had another collapsed lung. I pointed to the exact spot that hurt, swearing that there was a serious problem. I made the doctors reread the films. Nothing. Luckily, I was still coughing excessively and my oxygen levels were down. They decided, at 4 a.m., to admit me. This triggered meltdown number one - the formal.
Now, let me explain the significance of this formal. I never went to Prom. I have never had a boyfriend until Aaron. I had waited months to dress like a princess. THIS WAS MY PROM. I tried so hard not to leave school, because I knew that I wouldn't make it back by the following evening. I left Edinboro at 11 p.m. Thursday night, and my mother promised that if I was OK she'd drive me back to school after work on Friday. Good. I could deny the sick truth for a bit longer.
Being admitted to the hospital crushed all of this, and I sobbed for a solid half hour - not to mention off and on crying for several days.
I spent the next two days trying to convince everybody that I was sicker than they thought. They believed that I was telling the truth, but the second X-ray was clear as well. Fuck. Third time's a charm - Saturday's films showed pneumonia in my entire right lung. So bad, apparently, that the doctors have ordered my mother never to bring me to this hospital again - I need a city hospital.
So I literally spent a week in my iron lung, as it hurt to live. The good thing was that by mid-week I had a body so full of antibotics that nothing (probably not even my own organs) could survive, and I had the best excuse ever to sleep 24 hours a day. Plus, my mother runs the floor of the hospital where I was placed, so I had the best nurses caring for me.
The best day, though, had to be the day after the formal, when Sio, Aaron and Susan came to visit me. Susan drove (I still owe her a huge thank you), and Sio and Aaron entertained me with stories from the previous evening. They had taken Pinkie Pie, my My Little Pony, as a Rachel substitute and took many pictures of "me" eating salad (to spite me, because I hate salad), dancing and accepting awards. I'll get a hold of these photos soon and post them.
There were several other meltdowns those first few days - by both my mother and me. Triggers included her throwing away my favorite pizza in front of me (yeah, ask to hear about that story) and her coping with the fact that I might miss graduation.
BUT...
I DID ATTEND GRADUATION.
Oh I had four oxygen tanks to last the day and twelve panic attacks during the ride to school and a messed up stomach from my antibiotics. I coughed the whole time and my ribs hurt and I left ten minutes after receiving my diploma. But I was at that ceremony.
I did it for my mother. She wanted it more than anything in the world. It was her obsession, really. All I heard during my week of almost death was how I had to make it to graduation; did I feel better enough to go to graduation; how she had waited 22 years to see me graduate. Oh. My. God. FINE. I would've wheeled my casket down the aisle just to shut her up.
However, I will admit that it was worth it to see everyone one last time. All the friends I've spent the last four years with who were also graduating - Erica, JohnMitchell, Danny, Scotty, Seth, and Brian "Spiderman" Skaggs.
The only person I wanted desperately to see and didn't was Siobhan. I didn't call her before the ceremony because we were packing my room and I was trying to recouperate in the lung. Then I had to get dressed. I figured Sio was busy with similar activities with her family and that I'd see her after graduation to take lots of pictures. Leaving early, however, ruined those plans and hurt her feelings in the process. I need to make it up to her.
As a reward for graduating, I got to bring Mr. Aaron Dobler home with me for five whole days. Yay! I hadn't seen him in a week, so getting to spend Saturday through Wednesday with him was great. The trip was pure selfishness on my end. I had been missing my guy terribly and knew having him around would make me feel so much better. I subjected him to my family (aunts, uncles, etc.) and then my mother proceded to force-feed him home-cooked meals.
There was much talking and TV/movie-watching. On Tuesday, Zachary and I took Aaron to the mall, where I dragged him to girly stores, and then we drove him all around the Latrobe area on our "We used to live here" and "See that place...?" tour.
All in all, I think he had a decent time - at least that's what he tells me.
Enjoy an adorable picture of us from graduation.
After ten years of overall good health (forgetting the broken legs and three collapsed lungs), I was recently slammed HARD with pneumonia. It all happened so fast, too.
Two weeks ago I thought I had a bad cold. I believed that a day or two in the lung would fix everything. The only medical attention I needed was from my Nurse Dobler, who had been caring for me by keeping me company and relieving my fever by applying juice bottles and frozen crescent rolls to my neck, back and forehead. Little did I know that hours later I'd be calling my mother and asking to come home. I knew something was wrong, and I knew I needed to go to the hospital.
But once I was in the emergency room, things got worse. My X-ray was clear. What?! No. That couldn't be. I'm never wrong. My right lung ached, and I swore that I had another collapsed lung. I pointed to the exact spot that hurt, swearing that there was a serious problem. I made the doctors reread the films. Nothing. Luckily, I was still coughing excessively and my oxygen levels were down. They decided, at 4 a.m., to admit me. This triggered meltdown number one - the formal.
Now, let me explain the significance of this formal. I never went to Prom. I have never had a boyfriend until Aaron. I had waited months to dress like a princess. THIS WAS MY PROM. I tried so hard not to leave school, because I knew that I wouldn't make it back by the following evening. I left Edinboro at 11 p.m. Thursday night, and my mother promised that if I was OK she'd drive me back to school after work on Friday. Good. I could deny the sick truth for a bit longer.
Being admitted to the hospital crushed all of this, and I sobbed for a solid half hour - not to mention off and on crying for several days.
I spent the next two days trying to convince everybody that I was sicker than they thought. They believed that I was telling the truth, but the second X-ray was clear as well. Fuck. Third time's a charm - Saturday's films showed pneumonia in my entire right lung. So bad, apparently, that the doctors have ordered my mother never to bring me to this hospital again - I need a city hospital.
So I literally spent a week in my iron lung, as it hurt to live. The good thing was that by mid-week I had a body so full of antibotics that nothing (probably not even my own organs) could survive, and I had the best excuse ever to sleep 24 hours a day. Plus, my mother runs the floor of the hospital where I was placed, so I had the best nurses caring for me.
The best day, though, had to be the day after the formal, when Sio, Aaron and Susan came to visit me. Susan drove (I still owe her a huge thank you), and Sio and Aaron entertained me with stories from the previous evening. They had taken Pinkie Pie, my My Little Pony, as a Rachel substitute and took many pictures of "me" eating salad (to spite me, because I hate salad), dancing and accepting awards. I'll get a hold of these photos soon and post them.
There were several other meltdowns those first few days - by both my mother and me. Triggers included her throwing away my favorite pizza in front of me (yeah, ask to hear about that story) and her coping with the fact that I might miss graduation.
BUT...
I DID ATTEND GRADUATION.
Oh I had four oxygen tanks to last the day and twelve panic attacks during the ride to school and a messed up stomach from my antibiotics. I coughed the whole time and my ribs hurt and I left ten minutes after receiving my diploma. But I was at that ceremony.
I did it for my mother. She wanted it more than anything in the world. It was her obsession, really. All I heard during my week of almost death was how I had to make it to graduation; did I feel better enough to go to graduation; how she had waited 22 years to see me graduate. Oh. My. God. FINE. I would've wheeled my casket down the aisle just to shut her up.
However, I will admit that it was worth it to see everyone one last time. All the friends I've spent the last four years with who were also graduating - Erica, JohnMitchell, Danny, Scotty, Seth, and Brian "Spiderman" Skaggs.
The only person I wanted desperately to see and didn't was Siobhan. I didn't call her before the ceremony because we were packing my room and I was trying to recouperate in the lung. Then I had to get dressed. I figured Sio was busy with similar activities with her family and that I'd see her after graduation to take lots of pictures. Leaving early, however, ruined those plans and hurt her feelings in the process. I need to make it up to her.
As a reward for graduating, I got to bring Mr. Aaron Dobler home with me for five whole days. Yay! I hadn't seen him in a week, so getting to spend Saturday through Wednesday with him was great. The trip was pure selfishness on my end. I had been missing my guy terribly and knew having him around would make me feel so much better. I subjected him to my family (aunts, uncles, etc.) and then my mother proceded to force-feed him home-cooked meals.
There was much talking and TV/movie-watching. On Tuesday, Zachary and I took Aaron to the mall, where I dragged him to girly stores, and then we drove him all around the Latrobe area on our "We used to live here" and "See that place...?" tour.
All in all, I think he had a decent time - at least that's what he tells me.
Enjoy an adorable picture of us from graduation.