Mad World

October 4, 2010. I got up, like usual and went to work. When I got home, I was coughing and wasn't hungry for dinner. I had a fever of 102 degrees feranheit.
(I actually don't remember any of this but I have been told all of this)
My mom called an ambulance and I went to Mass General Hospital.

When I awoke, I was in the intensive care unit. (ICU). I had a tube in almost every place a tube could go. My brain felt foggy. It felt like I lived in some sort of alternate universe. I had no idea where, when or why I was in an ICU.
I was finally taken to an actual hospital floor. While in this hospital stay, I learned a few things.
1. I had stopped breathing and was on a ventelator.
2. I was in the ICU for two weeks.
3. My fever had gone up to 105.5
4. Many of the doctors did not think I would make it.
5. I was paralized while in the ICU, asleep.

When I was sleeping I had the strangest dreams. Some of my dreams were that I slept on a cot in the hospital basement.
Another was that my nurse had put me and my bed on the porch and let me watch a movie. (clearly there is no porch on the seventh floor of MGH). One stranger dream, was that I woke up in a barn with chickens running around my bed; then I woke up in my grandmothers old house, which I actually did ask my nurse if I was in a hospice.

While in the regular hospital floor, I could barely move. I couldn't touch my finger to my nose. I had to be fed because everything was too heavy for me. Including a plain metal spoon! I got physical therapy and occupational therapy. I had to use one of the lifts that picks you up and puts you in a chair. Finally I got to a walker. I also graduated from bed pan to kamode. And sponge bath to shower chair with help.
I still felt so weak. I could barely stand. I could not walk or bend down. Then I was transfered to Spaulding Rehab in Boston.

There I was tested to see my strengths and abilities. Physically and mentally/emotionally. I am most likely going home Friday. While I have been here, I have learned I had ICU miopothy. Which means that all of my muscles were so weak that I couldn't use them. This was from being paralized and having such a high fever. I have also relearned to walk with nothing assisting me. I can go up stairs and my hip and arm strength is getting amazingly better, amazingly quickly.
My doctors and therapists are amazing as well. I still get out of breath quickly and dizzy while walking. But that's getting better too. I'm getting help here studying for a test coming up for me. I have a therapist, who I trust and connect with; as well as can and will take me as an outpatient. I have a "coach" who I love and helps me with my self respect and self understanding. I also adore my occupational therapist.
When I leave I will go to outpatient Spaulding Rehab in Wellesley. I will also get a visiting nurse.
Every night before I go to bed, I watch The Breakfast Club, listen to my three favorite songs: Humans by The Killers, Landlocked Blues by Bright Eyes, and of course Mad World by Fears for Tears from the movie Donnie Darko.

Honestly, my mind still races, and goes faster than my body can move. I still feel scared that "the other shoe is about to drop", but I feel like a cat. Because cats supposedly has nine lives, and I feel the same way. After all I've been through I am still resilliant and strong. Of course, I still wonder why I am alive sometimes, but I am trying to think of all of the reasons I'm still alive.


" and I find it kind of funny
and I find it kind of sad
that the dreams in which I'm dieing
are the best I've ever had,
and I find it hard to tell you
and I find it hard to say,
it's a very very mad world,
Mad World." 


"we're all bizzare, some of us are just better at hiding it then others"- Andrew Clarke- The Breakfast Club.

It is November 7. I am leaving on the tenth. I am nervous but I'm also way too excited for words.
It's strange that this whole ICU/ MGH/Rehab setting has gotten me thinking so much. I think about a lot of things... Mostly I think of my independence. Soon I will have my own ride. The nurses and other staff are helping me to make a chart for me to remember to take all of my 17 medicines! (mostly for my heart). I already have a job. But I can't wait to be back at Mass Bay Community College... Then go to either Warren- Wilson in North Carolina or Wheelock College in Boston.
I want to study elementary reading and writing in special education. I want to be a reading and writing specialist in an elementary school for children with learning disabilities.
I also want to write a memoir. Not so much to tell what I've been through, but because I like to write.
I'm reading a book titled, The Brain That Changes Itself. Just by the title it is sort of obvious what the book is about. But really, there's much more than that in the book. It is about neuroplasticity and how the brain can relearn something or it can learn something in a different place in the brain than where it original was. The book has short stories of cases about people who have all different sorts of brain problems. I'm learning a lot.
Another thing I'm learning is to accept people more and more. If you read this, you're probably thinking, with all the medical problems I have how could I not accept people? But the thing is, I'm a person too and have many faults and opinions. Plus, I'm just now starting to accept myself, nevermind others. Although I usually do accept others more than myself.
You never know someone's situation until you know their situation. For example, I had a roommate who had night terrors and a "sitter" (which is someone who sits in the room so that the person they are watching will not hurt themselves or others. But, I was thinking, I can't deal with this... I've already been through this... What a crazy freak! But then I talked to my "coach" and only yesterday when I talked to her mother and found about her actual problems, that I felt so badly. I was like, how could I have had such awful thoughts about someone when I can understand, mostly, what is going on with this poor girl.
Then there is the other side that is even people with big houses and "perfect" lives don't actually have or feel that, "I'm perfect" feeling all the time. Even if they are trying to make a wall around themselves to not show their problems to anyone.
It really is a mad world... Because if everyone in the whole world put their problems in a huge pile and we all saw them, we would take our own right back!
"it is a very mad mad world"


"i'm not a nymphomaniac, i'm a compulsive lyer.."-Allison- The Breakfast Club
So, August 10, 2011.
Another year, another day.
Another thing in every way.
I did just write 1.
Not 2. 
But 3 is this.
They all make sense.
They are all true, but sometimes the stories are sugar coated to you.
Not right now, not anymore.
When I get to Respite here's what's in store-
I will be independent.
Making healthy meals.
Spending money wisely.
Buying my own things.
Anxiety will be like everything else in my life, overcome.
I will move to a college dorm or il group home.
I shall have more hurdles,
But just get on my horse and jump!


"And we think its ridiculous that you want us to spend the day letting you know, who we think we are.... I mean, what do you care? Because we all learned that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal."-The Breakfast Club"