Blog 2 - The Very Beginning

Summer of 2018 is where it all began. I won’t say the name of the summer camp that I worked at, because in no way do I blame that place for all this. I won’t really get into much detail about that summer, but something essential to the story is, said camp has e coli issues all summer that they had to treat all the time, but we still had camp. I don’t recall drinking anything from the water, but I still showered. Everything else we did with water was sanitary. Food was cooked with boiling water and water bottles were everywhere. Also, during that summer some of the camp staff went to Panda Express. I got my normal orange chicken with some noodles. That night was the worst night I had in a very long time. I was throwing up every 5 minutes. I decided that I probably should be going to the ER, I was taken to the ER, where I was checked out. I had gastroenteritis, and food poisoning. Camp became not fun; I was too tired to do anything really. I was sick a lot. All I wanted to do was to be with the kiddos, however possible. Sharing the Word with them was my passion. The main three things I remember from that summer, was how much I hated the kitchen job, I LOVED being a Vespers singing with the kids, praying with them, and just being there for them when they needed somebody to talk to. Lastly the AWFUL sunburn I got when some of the staff took a day to go to Indiana Beach. THAT was NOT fun LOL.

August of 201! The year I started my first semester of college! I was a college girl, finally all on my own. I chose to get as far away as home as I could to really feel like I was on my own! AND I could only get into Indiana State University because I was definitely not that great of a high school student. It was all Gods timing though, for sure, when I got that folder saying I was accepted into Indiana State. Move in day was a blur. I didn’t bring too much, got everything up to my dorm with one cart. I honestly didn’t know what I was doing but I knew I could figure it out. Heck, I was about to be all by myself. How was I going to meet friends. I’m not good at that at all. The first day, when my husband, boyfriend at the time, my mother, and my little brother left to go back home, I stayed in my dorm just sitting on the bed, trying to prepare for all my classes. It was so fun for me, seeing a written schedule laid out just how I wanted it to be. The first semester I only had classes TWF, I felt that was the best for me, giving me a lot of time. But I continued not to leave my room because I was so scared, and I missed my boyfriend A LOT.

Knock, Knock, Knock on my door. NOPE. Definitely not opening that. I sat in silence on my bed, like I was somewhere else. She knocks again about 25 minutes later, so this time I open the door. I NEEDED to be social otherwise this adventure for me was going to be a bit difficult. She was just inviting me to the Welcome Party with all the ISU students. I then messaged a friend from high school who also attended here, and asked her if she was going to be there. She was, but I only saw her for a couple seconds. I don’t remember talking to anybody else. I just went back to my dorm. It was probably 8pm at this point so I just went to bed.

Community Day: This is the day I actually made some friends. I met Taylor, who soon became my roommate (I didn’t have one at the start), and also became my best friend. I met Holly, who was in guard. We bonded really well. I met Aubrey, she was fun as well! We all started going to the cafeteria together. Luckily, we were all in the same dorms house together. I was glad I had friends.

Lots of time has passed now, Taylor and I are besties and finally become roommates. She didn’t have a roommate either, so I moved into her dorm. We had lots of fun together. But then things were changing. I noticed I started to gain weight. You know what they always say, 15lbs your first year of college. That’s what I thought it was. I would wake up with killer migraines in the mornings, where I would take a dose of Excedrin right when I would wake up. Another dose 12 hours later. That was an everyday routine for me. I was getting really tired, and began sleeping all the time, skipped classes, and made Taylor upset because I never wanted to do anything with her. I felt terrible and felt like I was losing my friend. My nose started to bleed all the time; I got this cough that sounded like a smoker’s cough that would not go away. It made blood vessels in my eyes bust so I was getting all these red dots all over my eyes. I finally decided that i should probably go to the clinic on campus to get checked out for the cough. They did some lab work and told me I was anemic and that I should probably get checked out to get treatments for that. I made another appointment to get all the panels checked to see how I should be treated. The very next day I was watching Harry Potter with my friends, when I got the call saying that there was something very abnormal in my kidney labs. I was in stage 5 kidney disease, and I needed to be at the hospital as fast as I could. They had a bed ready for me right then. As soon as i got there I got an ultrasound of my kidney’s the tech could barely find them, they were so small and shriveled. I can’t remember how long i was in the hospital for, but i started dialysis on March 7th of 2019 . Let me tell you this, I remember that day vividly. I had to get a port in my chest. It was kinda like a giant IV line that ran all the way to my heart. Once they finally hooked me up to a dialysis machine, the blood started running through the tube going to the machine, doing what its supposed to do, and then it came right back into my body. I got so sick, sweating, throwing up, and sleeping in between. Imagine living with extremely dirty blood in your body, and then clean blood retuning back to you. Your body goes through shock because it’s not used to this. I did 3 days straight of this for 4 hours. I felt like shit…

I finally got out. I decided to go home and drop out of college. There was no way that I could do this all by myself and juggle college. It was really sad that I just randomly left all my friends. I was very excited to be with Isaiah again:)

There I was, going to dialysis every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 2PM with a run time of 3 1/2 hours. The first two years were terrible. I would go to dialysis and then come home and sleep more than 12 hours till the next day.

This was the first part of the beginning of my story. The second part will be released March 17th. Stay tuned! Next week, ill be telling you all about what’s happened after 3 weeks with a new kidney, that will be posted NEX MONDAY March 10th. See you next week!