Well it has been a long time since I last wrote on my blog... mostly because it would depress me or I would forget what I was talking about or just get distracted by the fly buzzing around my room. Oh and I added a email subscribe button and pictures!
There is no way around the cold truth of CFS/ME. it SUCKS! For teens, it tends to takes these high achieving, athletic, active kids and flips their life like a light switch. We have our good days where we can go out and look good for the world, but then everyone around us wonders where the illness really is. They don't see us in bed paying for that day out with headaches and dizziness and all the pain that comes along with it. Another side of CFS/ME that people don't see is the emotional side. Sadness, irritation, anger, depression, hurt, loneliness, and so much more. Unless you have it you can only imagine what its like.
This year would have been my senior year. I feel like it was my fault I had to drop out of school. As if I didn't fight hard enough to stay in it, but with CFS fighting against it only makes it worse. I'm sad because I'm missing what was supposed to be the best year of high school. Homecoming week was rough. I was added to various school pages for seniors and it was like, "do you guys even notice that I don't go to school?!" Everyone was making senior shirts and there was a toga contest and the multiple posts about "Senior year homecoming." I think facebook sucks just because its a reminder of everything I'm missing. Pictures are definitely the worst though. Seeing your friends get ready without you and going to dinner together and everything else that goes with it, it is a bit depressing. I know prom season and graduation are going to be sad as well. I never got to go to prom and graduation is graduation.
People say that years from now you're most likely not going to be friends with any of your friends from high school. It has definitely filtered my friends, but it's sad that very FEW of my "friends" checked up on me. Thank goodnes for my wonderful boyfriend who kept me sane and was there with me, even carrying me up and down the stairs of my house. My friend, Maddie, has also been there to lift my spirits. So thanks, Maddie and Caleb!
Overall my high school experience was a short year and a half of memories. Second semester of my sophomore year I missed 1-2 days a week until I was out for a month in March from mono. The rest of that year was spent trying to make up work and catch up and Junior year was just and epic fail if I've ever seen one; Two weeks of good attendence then it was all downhill from there. Half the time the only reason I would show up was so I could go to gymnastics practice. Gymnastics will forever be the best memories of my high school life. Wonderful coaches and the best team despite the drama, but what team of girls doesn't have drama? I wish i could have gone back this year and overwrite the terrible last meet I had last year. I wasn't ready to stop gymnastics. I thought I would go back to school second semester and have gymnastics as a class so I could practice for this year... hahaha! That was back when I didn't take my illness seriously. Anyways i've seen pictures of the team this year and it just is incredibly upsetting and it's probably the worst part of not being in school. Didn't matter where I was in the line up I loved the team and doing my best... and jumping around on 4 inches of wood! ...bad idea for someone with POTS (Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, aka the reason my heart rate goes from 85 to 110-140 after standing for five minutes).
HOWEVER, I'm starting to get better. I'll hopefully take my GED next week and take a class or two next semester at a community college. Upside to this is I have no clue what I want to do with my life and I can figure that out BEFORE I go to a university. A university is still in the big picture, but might as well get the basics done! See look, say this stuff has already put me in a better mood. This is how my life is, and I can't change it; I can only change the way I look at it. So, I'm going to pray that I continue to get better and pray for everyone else to get better as well. Pray that this gets easier to deal with and that I will be a little more understanding to those who also have hard lives. A good reminder is that my life could be worse and as long as nobody else in my family gets this i'm good. sister, that one is for you.. i FORBID it. and mom. you too. :)
"Let your hope make you glad. Be patient in time of trouble & never stop praying" Romans 12:12
