Just Getting The Hang of It

Part I

Someone once told me to write for the sake of writing for myself, not for anyone else, but then again someone once told me that being an author is like showing your ass to the world so there's that. Either way here goes nothing. My life has been a series of roller coasters, but especially the last five years. I really wouldn't know where to begin, but the beginning would be a good place to start I guess. I don't mean the literal beginning of my life because it would be too long and nobody cares much for that information anyways. Plus I don't have very many solid memories of that time to really build on it and I'm lazy towards trying so there. I'll start from the beginning of the last five years. That's what most people are interested in and what I end up talking about the most with others.

On August eighth 2012, but my official medical records would argue otherwise as the ninth, I was diagnosed with Leukemia. Pre-B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia if we want to get technical. I remember the events leading up to this and the past five years more or less precisely. If anyone tells you differently otherwise, don't listen to them.

In the month of July 2012 I was participating in the Orange County Fair livestock competition with my pen of market broilers. That just means I had two chickens and they were being judged as a pair. I had won grand champion pen of market broilers for the second time and I was ecstatic. I'm not really known for winning awards in my life and when I won first place for chickens last year it was a miracle. You can actually see my name on the banner attached to the barn, at the O.C Fairgrounds. It's up there twice for winning. Pretty spiffy if you ask me. Now you can imagine how mind blowing it was for me to be winning first place again for the second time. I was on my high horse which only got bigger when I went to auction and sold those birds for two thousand dollars to Chicken Charlie's. I was flying on that high horse now. By the way shout out to Chicken Charlie's for the college money and everyone should buy something from them if they go to a fairground that he's at.

Now being the petty human being that I am, when I left the arena at auction, a fellow student named Dylan ran up to me. Now Dylan raised chickens as well and competed alongside me. He didn't that year for some unfortunate circumstances for him, but not for me. He had won second place the year before, I having taken first if that wasn't clear enough. During auction that prior year Dylan made more money than I did despite that his chickens came in second.

Coming back to the fair that year, I met Dylan and said to him, "Fuck you Dylan. Fuck you." as I smiled while giving him the finger. Like I said before I'm a petty human being.

Moving forward a bit, the last week of July that year I began to feel a pain at my side. A come and go kind of piercing pain. It was as if my rib was stabbing me. Not that I would know what being stabbed feels like. In the days to come it gradually became a constant pain. I was uncomfortable all the time. I couldn't sleep, couldn't move without feeling pain. It got hard to breathe. Eventually it got to the point where I couldn't move because it hurt too much. I cried putting on my shoes to head to the doctor.

At the doctors she thought I had pneumonia. She sent me to the emergency room and we all know how slow that goes. In the E.R they did testing, scans, all the requirements. My attending E.R physician told me my kidneys, liver and spleen were all enlarged. He continued to explain how my body is confused and attacking itself essentially. He stated that this matter only happens for two reasons. I either have some kind of virus or I have Leukemia. He continued with but it's very rarely Leukemia, like a 5% chance. Boy how I would like to see that E.R doctor today. This is where my fear of statistics stem from, but this topic will be discussed farther along.

That night they told me they had to keep me overnight for observation and that they needed to wait for a blood specialist to come and analyze my blood. Fair enough I thought, but this was my first time in the E.R so I was a bit worried. They didn't want me leaving the room they had put me in so they brought in a commode (a chair that has a bedpan for a seat. A portable toilet if you will) and told me to use it if I had to go to the bathroom at night. I woke up once to use it and went back to sleep.

During high school I had zero period which for us was a class that started at 7:00 am (shout out to Mr. Boyd). I had just graduated a month and a half ago in June. I was used to waking up early. I didn't mind it, but I believe the nurse I had that day thought she was helping when I woke up that day at 6:00 am that morning and decided she was going to give me a push of morphine into my IV line to put me back to sleep. "It's too early" she said with a smile. I woke up again at a bit past 7:00 am and again she came by and gave me another push of morphine into my IV line saying, "It's still too early." Back to sleep I went. First of all let me just say I hate morphine. This was my first experience with the drug. They gave it to me the first time when I got to the inside of the Emergency Department before going in to do scans. I absolutely despise morphine. I hate how I can feel it settle at the base of my spine, as well as make me nauseous and give me a headache to boot. I was not pleased with the double dosing of the stuff the following morning because I woke up early.

When I finally woke up at around 8:00 am, I waited for my mom to show up. In the meantime two doctors at two separate times had come to check on me. When I asked them what was going on they ignored me. My mom arrived and was summoned out of the room to go talk to the doctor outside. I knew something was wrong. My mom came back into my room with tears in her eyes and that just confirmed it. I knew I was being transferred to a different hospital because the doctors had told me so when checking on me. They were sending me to meet with the blood specialist instead. I hated the feeling of being out of the loop. If it was my health we were talking about they should be letting me know what's going on. When the time came for me to go the ambulance brought out a stretcher. I asked to use the restroom first. They allowed me to use a real restroom this time. When I came back who do I find waiting for me by the stretcher, but my dear old nurse. I laid down on the stretcher and she gives me one last push of morphine and says, "One more for the road." All with a smile. Damn her.

This began my biggest journey yet. To Millers Children's Hospital of Long Beach, California I went. Oh, I forgot to mention I live in California. Shout out to my hometown Westminster.