Hiatus Explained

Well... things have changed a little. So a couple years ago I created this blog in an attempt to share my experiences of "living life with a medical condition" and to share any tips or knowledge that I have gained through my many years of experience. For a while that's exactly what I did. I told stories of hospitalizations and making up school work, and gave advice about talking to doctors and staying organized. I enjoyed the experience of writing what was going on in my life and I liked the idea that people I had never met could be helped or affected by my stories. I'm gonna be honest and say I wasn't great at posting on a regular basis - being a teenager in high school with homework and procrastination issues are to thank for that. But I tried my best and generally was able to write at least one story a month. As I started college I got behind in my writing as I was inundated with homework, a new social life, and dealing with my medical condition in the "real world". I wanted to continue writing but I got behind and was so busy it just seemed easier to put it off one more day and eventually that led to months of radio silence. Another reason why this blog was partially abandoned was because I have a lot of family and very close adult friends that have found and are following this blog. Which is great - I love them all and it's cool to hear feedback from people that are important in my life, but it can also be a little constraining because I started feeling like I couldn't be completely truthful. I felt awkward about my great aunt reading about how horrible I was feeling or my old neighbor reading about how wearing a bikini is impossible with an ostomy bag. These were the thoughts of 18 year old Celia as she finished her 1st semester of college. I came home after 4-ish months of dorm life, cafeteria food, and amazing new friendships, back to my house with my cats and dog and celebrated christmas. And then New Years happened.
New years eve morning I wasn't feeling great. I thought that I was getting my period and so I took some Motrin and went about my day. After a whole day of not feeling great I sent my family out to enjoy new years eve and was planning on relaxing at home. The usual symptoms happened - I got a fever and chills, I hurt all over, so I called my parents and my dad came home to take me to the hospital. My mom told me not to worry and she sent us on our way. We arrived at the emergency room, I was ushered to a bed and began the seemingly endless waiting that occurs in the ER. A nurse came and saw me and said she'd get me some more Motrin and then left. And then nothing. I don't remember anything after that.

Apparently the infection that was attacking my body became to powerful and overwhelmed my bodies natural defenses. My bodies response was to crash. I stopped responding, my lungs stopped breathing on their own, my blood pressure wouldn't stay up.... my body started failing. My dad sat in the emergency room and watched as a team of doctors tried to keep me alive. Around 11 days later I woke up in the pediatric intensive care unit. They had had to sedate me in order to keep me from fighting the many machines and medecines they were using to keep me alive. I was on an intense amount of opiates leaving my wake up filled with terrifying hallucinations. Once I woke up they eventually removed by breathing tube and I was able to finally speak and breath on my own for the first time in over a week. All my organs had issues, some just took a while to work, others like my kidneys needed some help. I was placed on a dialysis machine in order to get rid of the fluids pumped into me to keep my blood pressure up and to get rid of the toxins that were overwhelming my system. And while my kidneys were recovering I had to go through withdrawals as we slowly weened me off the opiates my body had become addicted to. 
When I first woke up the drugs were still messing with my head enough that I thought some magical being was giving me time to spend with my parents before I died. I couldn't go to sleep for 4 days. I saw my family and now have no memory of what they said to me. I would wake up crying and would spend hours at 3am talking to my parents about how scared I was. Nurses that had seen me time and time again felt like strangers. My parents were traumatized, my sister was exhausted from trying to deal with the situation and keep going to school, my friends were oblivious as no-one thought to contact them and I was broken.
In order to try to get a grasp of normality I tried to latch on to who I was before I had woken up. I posted on Facebook and talked about how I loved everyone, I tried to start walking normally after a 23 days of not moving from a bed, I tried to be witty. When I got out of the hospital my second semester of college had started and I got ready to face the music. I worked hard at getting my strength back, I called my friends, and picked 2 classes to take while commuting from home. And when I first started, things were good. It felt good that I was returning to normal and that I wasn't letting things knock me down. But the truth remained that I was a different person. I wasn't the same Celia that left school a month ago. I was broken and was barely keeping it together. This led to some pretty dark times for me. I was feeling depression, anxiety, and i was dealing with some pretty serious post traumatic stress. School wasn't important, friends were more stressful than good, and my family just needed the reassurance that I was alright so they could keep going whether it was true or not.
To me this all sounds very dramatic and sad. I felt weird talking about what had happened. I didn't want people to pity or be shocked. But then I felt like people weren't seeing the real me and so I wanted people to already know. I wanted to wear what happened like a badge so people would know that had been through hell and that I was different person than I was. I finally reached out for help.
I have only just begun the struggle to feeling completely better. My second semester has ended and it suffered from my health and mental place. But I am currently the happiest I have been since getting out of the hospital. I feel confident and I can laugh again. I still have bad days... but i'm working towards getting to a new best me.
So taking a deep breath of cleansing - not scary air, the reason I am posting this is because ... I don't know. Suddenly the concerns I had about blogging seem less relevant. I like the idea that writing this down will give me a type of journal experience and others guidance. And that includes my family/friends that I know will read this. I don't know if this will last. This could be my last post ever, but I don't think it will be. Just be forewarned. I am going to talk about things on this blog that aren't as fluffy as making up school work...well I will, cuz that stuff is hard, but I will also be talking about young adult things so be warned. This blog might also get a little dark at times - my life is different now and I have gained different emotions to go with it. Anyways, if you're reading this - thanks for taking the time. xxx Celia

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