A Day In The Life

This is my first “story”, on this site. To be honest, i haven’t written anything in several years. I don’t know if it’s due to the several health issues I’ve suffered from, dating back to when i was seventeen and we were in a pretty terrible car accident - or if it’s just my mental abilities declining naturally on their own, but i know one thing - i am by NO means the same person i was back when i felt i COULD write. I don’t really know where to begin.

I’ve heard - to write about what you know. So, i will try starting there. What i know - is that I’m currently emotionally burnt the fuck out. I hope you don’t mind the use of swear words, because i use them frequently, daily, often. This is largely because of how terrified i am about my health. Which began declining the year after i lost my father, he passed in 2012, at the young age of only 57. Another car accident. A thoughtless driver hit him on his new Harley, a bike he had waited several years to get back, waited until i was done with school and moved out, and that day - God, i wish i couldn’t remember it so well.

I was cleaning the bathroom in our small apartment (i lived there with my boyfriend, Eric, and we had been together since i was 17). When my mom called me - she was to take e to work that afternoon, after dropping my dad off to his job. She told me...she’s received a call from our local hospital, that a nurse had told her my father was in a very bad accident, and that we needed to get there as soon as possible. Only they didn’t give her many details, because they didn’t want us to possibly get into an accident rushing there. Had we known the severity of the situation, i would’ve driven as fast as the car would allow me to go.

It was an oddly warm day in March that year. Living in Northern Michigan, March is typically still pretty chilly. But because of how nice it was weather-wise...my dad just had to take his Harley out for a ride before work that afternoon. If i could go back and prevent him from doing that - i would give almost anything to be able to prevent this. If only love were enough, he would still be here today. But unfortunately, i have been shown far too many times, that love does not conquer all things. As much as we would like for it to.

We arrived at the hospital, the emergency room, and immediately - saw my father on a stretcher. His pelvis tied together with ropes. He was somehow still lucid and talking. I guess his pelvis had been broken in half, as well as both hips being broken on top of that. No head injury. I visited with him just briefly, in terrible shock, before the pilot of the helicopter who was to fly him downstate to a larger hospital - came to give me his belongings: his wallet, helmet, the clothes he had had on. He told us we would need to drive and meet them down there, that “hopefully” he would survive the traveling...and he did.

To try to sum it up, my father fought for his life for 43 days in the intensive ICU. I spent every single day there with him, by his side. THEOUGH every single moment, of joy and pain, of despair and hope, and of the complete and utter loss of all hope on the day, the early morning - when he passed.

Losing him - was like losing pieces of myself. Right after he passed, i ran outside of that place, SICK of being there, sick of the fear, sick of the worrying...and sat in a bench at 5 in the morning, it was now May 3rd. Now. The anniversary of his death. As i sat there, i realized that i literally did not know how to exist in a world where my father did not. Literally - could not exist in a material world in which the strongest man i had ever known, no longer was.

As time went on, the next few to six months...i was suffering greatly from visual flashbacks, from the most painful memories from those 43 days in the ICU. I would try...to speak to my mother or my sister about what was going on in my head, what i could not stop from going through my head - but they would simply tell me each time, “i can’t go there.” Amd so i felt even more alone. I refused therapy/counseling. Why/ i don’t know, because that is my dream profession and i strongly believe in the power of it. I was trapped. Depressed. A lost little girl in the body of a 21 year old, who had been put in charge of all legal and medical decisions. I had wanted to return to school later that year - but the pain, the grief - it never eased up.

I ended up having my first root canal done about half a year after my father’s passing, and i got hooked on opiates. The moment - i took the first two, those visual flashbacks, they stopped entirely. My grief - put on an indefinite pause. I didn’t realize that i was actually just masking my real emotions. At the time. I felt that any relief - was a good thing. Was...a means to continue existing and not suffering every moment of every day. And as i began taking more and more, i began wondering - “how the hell can everyone else just be NORMAL!?” Why is it JUST ME who is DYING INSIDE?

But, medication in hand, i felt as though i were really high functioning. I made sure we had a house that was paid off, from my inheritance. Not a bug, pricey house, but a small, affordable one. Made sure we had a good vehicle, also paid off. I got a nice job at a local bank as a teller. And for awhile, things felt somewhat okay. Only - i would go to call my dad and i would get his voicemail. It wasn’t even his voice...while in the hospital, he stopped being able to speak after the first time he came out of a coma, ten days after his initial surgery. So not being able to hear his voice still - the pain from that creaked through the mind numbing pain medication. I continued “functioning” though.

But ended up being let go from that job, after a few months. It wasn’t because I’d been making mistakes or that i wasn’t good with the customers...i guess i just wasn’t “selling” those money market accounts enough, and was told they “didn’t feel i was ready to return to work so soon after losing my dad.” I suppose - i really wasn’t.

Time continued to pass. I managed to hide my addiction from my boyfriend and my mother (who had moved in with us bc she couldn’t afford the apartment she and my dad had lived in since i was in 4th grade, aka HOME. No one was at all aware of how many i was taking each day, as the numbers kept rising...

It wasn’t until a year and a half later, when i took my mom out of town to this fancy Asian restaurant...it really was a very nice day we spent together. That is, until i began driving us back home. I had a full on grand maul seizure while driving. I was OUT of it. I suppose my mother manages to crawl over the center counsel, pull the car over, and flag down someone to call for an ambulance. That time, they told me it must have been from the number of opiates i had eaten, like candy. And that...wasn’t even enough of a wake up call for me to stop taking them altogether.

I continued taking my mind-numbing medications...until a few months later, when i had another seizure at home. Was taken back to the emergency room, was let go - and stopped at a gas station on the way. I had another grand maul while in the gas station, so back to the hospital it was. They kept me a few days, told me i had epilepsy. But i doubted that all along. Still took the drugs for it, however. As i kept having seizures.

I accepted being put on suboxone, and little did i know at the time - it is a drug one is supposed to only take for a few WEEKS. Hell, i was on it for TWO YEARS. Money-seeking asshole doctors around here. You’d go to their office, sit down for almost five minutes, long enough for them to write the script, pay them $150.00, and send you on your way. I actually did pretty well on that, my cravings were gone, etc...

But my health - began declining. It is now the reason that i am constantly terrified, constantly depressed. For i do seek to have symptoms of liver disease. However, they tell me that my scans HAD been “within range”. It’s been awhile since they’ve checked, though. It turned out, that i was to be a medical mystery for seven years Ans running. While they’ve managed to figure one major thing out, just this last December, there are several more problems i still struggle with - that have no answers. For instance, i know I’ve needed my gallbladder removed for some time. It’s just unfortunate that the doctors in my area...are so shitty, they couldn’t even spot a shitty gallbladder...five years ago. Told me it wasn’t the cause of any of my terrible abdominal pain. I didn’t have stones, it was “only inflamed and enlarged” back then. I switched doctors again, and found one/am seeing one who FINALLY believes me, who FINALLY sees the real struggle I’ve been facing for such a long time...

He managed to discover that i apparently have a rare clotting disorder, called Lupus Anticoagulant. Back last December, when i landed in the hospital with double pulmonary embolisms, which almost killed me - but somehow, i got lucky! So I’m now on blood thinners for that.

I’m fine about getting gallbladder surgery this coming January, what i worry to death about - is that they will “go in there” and SEE that my liver is terrible. That i will wake up and be told i DO have end stage liver disease. And i swear, i am not a hypochondriac. I worry for the fact that ...i suffer from so many physical symptoms, which range to very severe at times...I’m literally worrying myself into a deep depression.

If i were to write about each and every symptom I’ve had over the years, ones that remain with me to this day, i would be writing forever, almost. So i will just say - there are several, I’ve lost the ability to work, the last three years, and life as i knew it - has been over for some time.

But right now, i actually do have other outside things to at least try to look forward to. My boyfriend and i, we have been physically separated the last almost four years (have been together for 14 now), and FINALLY - we will be moving into a home that we have been renovating ourselves, over the last year and a half. Just when i thought it’d never be possible to ever again live together physically once more - we did find a way. So i view this as a second chance, a chance to start fresh. I just hope...i will be here for it. The thought terrifies me to my core, and it makes me notice this deep down...sick feeling that i have every day, all the more. I cannot just be happy, no - i have to be terrified, i have to feel sick - STILL. It’s just become far too much to handle, to try and talk myself out of, at this point. It makes EVERYTHING - terrifying. Even the good stuff, because it means...i may not even be here for those things. My surgery is scheduled for next month. I’m trying to be positive and hopeful. Trying. As hard as possible.

I of course - do not blame anyone besides myself for the actions and choices I’ve made, while i was at a point in life...where i simply could not do any better. But i have on and off returned to opiates - only this time, it’s not to mask anything emotional, it’s for the legitimate physical pain i now suffer from every day. That i hope this surgery will cure, will fix - so that i TRULY CAN start over, and have my second, possibly third, chance.

I’m excited, but also terrified, for what is to come. Of course we never know until it arrives. We can guess, we can fret, we can worry and we can assume - but none of that does us much good, I’ve learned (i still do it, though).

This - i suppose - is my introduction to this site, to my page; my entry describing who i am and what i am facing today. Somethings I’ve managed to overcome, some things I’m still trying to.

But if anyone finds some interest in what this “character’s” life may involve, i do have a lot more to add. I also have the tendency to write very lengthy responses and have difficulty knowing how to focus my vision on certain periods of time, etc. i tend to ramble. To overthink, over feel, over-write, over-fear, over-everything besides...over-chill. I believe i have recently lost the ability to relax entirely. For i am constantly either waiting for time to pass - or hoping that it will slow down. But perhaps...if i start writing about it all once again, something i really have not done since that car accident i was involved in BAXK when i was seventeen...when i swear my brain went to MUSH...well, perhaps there is some therapy in this. I guess I’ll just have to really try actually being patient, persistent, and at least semi-positive that it may.

This is the beginning of my story.

I hope...it may be of some interest to you. I hope my story will not end sooner than life will allow me to actually begin REALLY living. So that i can have more to write about, besides fear and illness and stress...