Off-topic: Surgery June 22nd

I just recently found out that I need surgery on the 22nd of June for a Thyroglossal Duct Cyst. It’s Congenital, meaning I’ve had it my whole life, just now it’s grown to a point where I notice it.

The reason I need surgery to remove this cyst in my neck is that it can cause more infections in my body and burst (become an abscess), or it can metastasize to become thryoglossal cancer. They will know this after the surgery if the cyst is made of cancer cells or not, and if it is cancerous, I’ll need a few weeks radiation.

I think it’s most scary because it’s surgery, like, in my neck! I won’t be able to swallow a lot after the surgery, and I’ll need to stay in the hospital at least a day.

It’s a little overwhelming at the age of 20, but I’d rather know that I need this now during the summer than during my nursing clinicals this winter.

I’m just so glad that I know what it is now, I’m just super nervous about what will happen afterwards.

It just feels good to get this in words.

Off-Topic: The C-Word

So, these last couple months have been crazy insane. I just started my first semester of the Nursing program, I celebrated a year with my current boyfriend, I turned 20, and I got a fun job for the summer (it includes hanging out with new students and dogs!). But due to all of this manic, I’ve been ignoring my health for awhile.

Just a few weeks ago I finished teaching my workout class, and I have one male student in my class that I adore (his name is Edmund and he uses a walker to get around), but for some reason there was a strange odor entering my nose after each session. It smelled a lot like a horrible fart or like someone in the class shit their pants. It was strange, and I didn’t want to embarrass Edmund or ask someone else, “hey do you smell that?”, so I kept my mouth shut. A few days later, I smell it again! This time, I’m not in class. I’m in my room!

So this weird random smell has been occurring over and over again, each time getting stronger and lasting longer. I’ve asked my friends to smell me and they don’t smell it, I blow my nose super hard, and I continue to smell it while in the shower!

So about a week ago, I was done with this smelly smell and I also noticed a lymph node in my neck had grown to the size of a golf ball in my neck. I scheduled an appointment with a doctor and he asked me about recent dizzy spells, smelly spells, and felt the lump for a good solid 5 minutes being super quiet and gave me looks of concern.

He is concerned that I could have something messing with my ole-factory nerve, cribiform plate, pituitary/pineal. He said it’s falling in the spectrum between a serious sinus infection (I haven’t felt sick, no runny nose), and cancer. He scheduled an MRI of my brain to take a look at everything, and Throat Ultrasound to look closely at the node (which might get biopsied for cancer, which means they will make an incision and cut a piece out). My tests are next Tuesday, and then the next week I will get my results back with my doctor.

I’ve honestly been a nervous wreck about it and I can’t help but worry if it is the worst thing, and what I would do. My boyfriend told me that he doesn’t care if I lose my hair or anything, he wants me to get the best care and treatment down at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester if it comes down to it. I’ve been so grateful for the support from friends and family due to this weird and anxiety-filled time. All I can do is just sit and wait.

 

Off-topic: Mental Illness

This is the day and age where Mental Illness has spread like HIV in the 60’s. It’s everywhere. Our music(Logic’s amazing ballad: 1-800-273-8255), our television (Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why), and the gallery of instagram/Tumblr accounts beautifying a horrible problem people, including me, are struggling with everyday. It’s NOT COOL. I hate when I see a beautification or incorrect description of an illness. No. You do not have OCD if you organize you keep your sock pairs together. You are OCD if you are consistently in a cycle of anxiety, deprivation, temporary relief, and so on. You are not bipolar if you change your mind.

I’d like to share two short stories of people I knew that struggled with mental illnesses and how it has affected me more than what I’ve seen lately today.

Starting with my aunt. I loved her. She truly was amazing. I never knew she had a drinking problem. I never knew she needed help for her depression. I hardly knew she was a danger to herself. But she ended her life. She decided, after many calls trying to get the help she needed, that no one was going to change her feelings. Around 2 in the morning, she walked into her parent’s (my grandparents) backyard and lit a cigarette in my grandfathers tool shed that contained a propane tank. She covered the shed in Gasoline and blew herself up. We were thankful the explosion didn’t burn the neighborhood down, but my uncles ran into the backyard to see the metal shed melting. They could almost see a figure inside, moving around. They thought it could have been her.

The only thing left of her were the rings she wore. I feel bad for my mother and family, who saw the charred up remains of my aunt. In dreams of her, my grandmother was told by her that she no longer has a body. Her soul is stuck here, as not a physical body, but ashes. A shadow.

Because of the damage in the backyard, my grandpa had to paint the burnt fence, grow a garden where the shed stood, and they’ve kept her bedroom the exact same. I’ve slept in it multiple time, feeling a little uneasy for taking her space, but every night I ask for permission, and it has always been a yes.

Since her and three dogs passing away at this house, my grandparents have had no money to work on the house to make it sellable, and no one wants to buy a house my aunt blew herself up in. My grandparents will most likely die in that house and someone will have to take care of it, unfortunately. The paint’s peeling, the stairs still have a metal railing, the living room has dog pee-smelling carpets and wood paneled walls. It’s the ultimate 70’s banger house.

I once won a $10,000 house makeover in the city, and I was going to use the money towards this house, but the announcer said I had to own the house, I told him, “Please, sir, it’s for my grandparents. They need it.” And they hung up on me. Bastards.

As sad as this story sounds, it’s changed me a lot. I think it woke me up to noticing people and their behaviors far better than if it never happened. Nowadays, I’m a first res ponder to boyfriends, friends, and colleagues at school that need help.  Most of the time, it’s when they drink or do drugs.

The people that are always doing drugs or drinking seem to be the repetitive care I deal with. Sometimes, I notice it’s myself that needs help.

In high school, there was one particular kid that stood out to me as being the party goofball. That one kid that always does the craziest shit. Except, I never knew this kid very well. He was jewish, he had curly hair, and he was slightly shorter than me, and younger. I don’t know why he stood out to me, and why I have this attachment to someone I barely met, but he killed himself August 8th, 2016. I never knew why, and I hardly knew his close friends to find out. But when I heard this happened, I did some research. I found a Spotify playlist made by him on the day he died titled Last Song Hodia. It had 30 songs. Some were added multiple times, others were placed in a pattern, and some were left for the very end of the playlist

I believe he listened to the whole track in order before he crashed his vehicle into a tree.

I don’t know why it intrigued me, the songs he chose, or the way he did it. I just feel like I knew him already, based on everything.

So now I ask you, the reader, what songs would you choose to listen to before you die?

 

Every time this saved playlist of mine shows up on my Playlists list on Spotify, I give a little shout out in my head to this kid I never met, whom I never understood why, that he is amazing in my mind. He’s helped me reach into the depth of my own crazy party drinking self and helped me tell myself that it’s okay to not pretend to be happy. It’s okay to not be the crazy person that’s always down to do some crazy shit. Be sad. Be fucking angry. Be emotional. Be everything you want to feel and want to do. Because holding back is like tightening the noose around your neck. Inching you closer and closer to a numb oblivion of never, ever, saying what you want or need to say.

 

 

 

Off-Topic: What’s missing?

I've written approximately 34 blogs so far and I almost feel like scratching it all and starting over. Or just knit-picking at all the details because these stories don't feel quite ready. They don't feel perfect or at all as I had hoped.

Perhaps I need a little more guidance with my writing? Maybe I need to present these middle-school facades and the commentary in a different setting. I've tried doing a vlog, and I'm far too concerned about my identity and story getting out. I feel safer writing my story and hiding behind words. Some of the details of these journal entries are far too embarrassing to read out loud, so instead I type.

But how can I present the middle-school me and compare it to myself without confusing the reader or letting the lessons come forward in a thought-provoking way? My constant inputs in the diary entries can be annoying and sort of act as a writing pause. It keeps the writing from flowing as neatly as it would if I had just written before and/or after each entry.

What is also a problem is how many entries I really have, and how I'm trying so hard to squeeze 5-6 entries into one blog post to prove a lesson I have learned. Sometimes, it turns out to be really good. Other times, it's a jumbled up, unrelated mess. So what the hell is missing?

As a writer, I really want to continue to focus on the task at hand, and work out each issue. My main task is to present the life of me as an Air Force Brat, not a loser clingy girlfriend with friend troubles. But how am I supposed to get more real than that? It's my life. I hope to perhaps start a new set of blog posts here that involve maybe other brats and their issues that are pretty similar to my own.

Any ideas or tips would be kindly appreciated.