I forgot I even had a blog, sorry for the delay....Anyways.....
My story starts when I was 12 years old. I was an athlete and I was competing in the Junior Olympics. I had won at the State Level, first place so I was moving to the Regionals. I remembering running the mile at 5:08, but I do not remember my other times. I guess I could pull my ribbons out and read them. But the reason I remember my mile time is because I always wanted to beat it :) So, I made a name for myself and I practiced everyday. I loved to run, it was always my stress reliever. I went to regionals and I ended up in the emergency room because I became dehydrated in the heat, not fun. Yet, I checked myself out and still ran. I did not finish first but I still finished in the top, so I was happy!!! I continued to train and compete and win more titles, but I did it for the love of the sport.
Well, I am getting ready to head to head to high school, and I am excited because I have already heard the track coaches from the other schools were hoping that I was going to go to their school because I was formidable . I even had a couple of scholarships offers that came in from oversees, I am not sure if they were real or legit, but it was still neat regardless!!! :) That made me feel great. In the meantime, I was trying out for soccer. The soccer coach was also the track coach, so I figured I would also get to know the his personality if I made the team. So I put my nerves aside, here I am at 4'11" 108 lbs freshmen trying out for the varsity team, and surrounded by all of these juniors and seniors who are checking out the newcomer. It was tough and grueling, and I am so glad that I had my track practice, otherwise I would have been hurting big time, because the coach was working us hard trying to get us into shape. Later I found out I made the team, along with one other freshman, I was so excited!!! I have made friends with many of the team members and throughout the school. Things in life were looking great.
However, a couple of months later I wake up and I can barely move. I try to get out of bed to get ready for school, so try brush my hair, but the brush is too heavy for my hand. My legs feel lead and jello. So, I tell my mother I am too ill for school and she tells me to lay back down, and we figure I have the flu and she goes to work. I am feeling worst, so I call her at work and she comes home and my face and body is swollen, so she takes me to the emergency room.
The emergency room states that I am constipated and gives me an enema and sends me home. I get sicker, so my mom takes me back. While I am at the emergency room I start to run a high fever, my mouth becomes full of blisters, and I continue to swell. I continue to wait, and it has been hours. Luckily my doctor arrives off of his flight, and came directly to the hospital. He saw me in the waiting room, and took me directly to a room. Where I immediately became worst. I suffered from pericarditis, encardititis,myocarditis,pleural effusion, pleurisy, costochondritis, and edema. I was having convulsions and other ailments, therefore they did not think I was going to make it, so they were calling my family in to say good-bye to me. Luckily I did make it, but I was in the hospital for over 4 weeks. I ended up being diagnosed with Bornholm disease (is usually just one of the Coxackie viruses but I had Coxackie virus B2 B3 B5 and another virus which was never diagnosed and supposedly they named it after me in the New England Medical Journal, but I am not sure and I have checked and found nothing but I am not quite sure how to check).
While I was in the hospital, only two friends from school visited otherwise nobody else did. Everyone else thought I was dead. I had gotten sick so early in the school year, that I was easily forgotten. It was so depressing and so hard as a teenager. Although I was discharged from the hospital, I was not able to return to school. I still had a lot of recovering to do. So I had to do home teaching and that also took me away from the kids too. So I was so isolated and I was not able to run. I did not know what to do. Everything I have known was gone. However, I did as I was told and slowly but surely I became stronger. I never became the person I was though. In late spring, I was able to return to rschool. In doing so, I signed up for the track team. The track coach was ecstatic. I tried telling the coach, that I would not be able to compete at the levels I once did, but he would not listen. It was not until the first meet, and I lost did he realize. Instead of understanding, he was angry at me, like it was my fault. That is when I realized I did not like that coach one bit!! However, I continued running track, because I did it for me not for the coach. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose and I am okay with that. Honestly I missed being the athelete I was, but there was nothing I could do about. So I had to concentrate on my other abilities and that made up for it but it took me a while to realize it. Because I did mourn my loss of being an athelete. It was my world and then it was taken away by an illness and this illness still pops up here and there (fatigue, blisters, pericarditis, pleurisy and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). But then life continued again.
