Almost Dying Really Sucks

Seriously, Blogger, why won't you acknowledge my paragraphs? I skipped lines AND indented. I am a little bit disappointed in my near death experience in that I didn't get to see a white light or anything, or get to talk to my mom, who encouraged me to hang in there and go back. I really wish that had happened. I just remember feeling truly and soundly awful and thinking that this was not normal and I sure hope someone can make me feel better. I am having a hard time not feeling sorry for myself. I'm pretty freaking miserable right now, actually, and I need to get over it. Yes, being ill has been awful and I still feel like crap most of the time, but I'm not dead, and that is all that should matter. I don't have much to complain about in the grand scheme of things. I have a beautiful family who loves me. I have a house. A job. The new iPhone 4S, which is awesome. So what if I have no energy and feel like I've been run over by a freight train. And my hair is falling out, which is awful. I think that complaint is legitimate. But even then, I'm still alive. My friend Krystal, who is a year younger than me, died today. I'm not sure what happened. We were facebook friends and occasionally would post on each other's walls, but I just heard that she was dying today. And my stepmother has bladder cancer and they are going to remove her bladder December 8. I know that I should move on, but I can't seem to yet. I do think I was maybe making some progress until my hair started falling out. I noticed it last week. Friday at work I kept getting hair in my eyes, which I thought was weird. Then Saturday evening as I was getting the tub ready for the kids' bath, I saw all this hair in the tub. I was thinking, "Whose hair is this?" Then I realized it was my hair. I looked in my bed, and there was a lot of hair there, too. Then I shook my head in the bathroom and a bunch of hair fell out onto the floor. That can't be good. I immediately called my sister, because that's what I do when I'm freaked out. And I called Kyle, since he is a doctor and it's his job to deal with all my medical questions. He's extremely tolerant of all my medical questions. Heather told me not to worry, and Kyle said that my hair follicles were damaged when I got sick and that my hair would grow back. He wasn't sure how much hair I would lose. It's been a week now, at least since I first noticed, and the hair just keeps falling out. I told him that we were having family pictures taken this weekend for our Christmas card, and he suggested I move that up! If I'm wearing a hat in our Christmas card, you'll know why. I feel like people think I'm just bitching when I say how tired I am. If someone asks me how I'm feeling, that's what I tell them, because it's overwhelming how exhausted I am. But people just look at me like I'm being silly or something. I may be too sensitive about all of this. I'm a mess. I'm hoping typing these words will help with my recuperation. Kyle was saying that it's almost too bad I didn't need life support when I went to the ER, because people understand life support. He said I was sick enough for life support, but was strong enough to not need it. I don't know if that would help. Unless you have been through something like this, you aren't going to know what it means. And it's human nature to try to make your own connection, so people will talk about how tired they were after giving birth, for example. I'm like, I've given birth twice. This is not the same. I don't say that to people -- that's my interior voice talking. Same thing with my hair loss. Women keep saying that they lost their hair after they had their babies. Again, not the same thing. When my mom was going through her fight with breast cancer, she was super brave and positive. But the day she lost her hair was the day she cried. Heather and I were both there, and it was one of the saddest days of my life. We kept saying, "It's just hair." But it's not just hair. I worry I'm becoming my mom. She first got sick when I was nine. She was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital having part of her large intestine removed. Heather and I got to stay at Arkansas Post with the park superintendent and his family, who we loved, so my memories of Mom's illness at that point are mostly positive. I vaguely remember going to the hospital in Pine Bluff to see her and her looking really pale and weak, but that's about it. When I was in tenth grade my mom had an allergic reaction to penicillin and that almost killed her. She had a seizure in the bathroom. I don't know if Heather or I called 911, but one of us must have. I remember being completely terrified. I don't know how long she was in the hospital -- a few days, I guess. It was during the school year and my favorite history teacher was so sweet to me that week. Then Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer my sophomore year of college. I think on some level when I was a kid I was always scared of losing my mom. That's probably one of the reasons why I never hated my mom like some teenage girls do. I never fought with her and complained about her. My mom has always been on a pedestal. I worshiped my mom. I'm sure that didn't make things easy on my dad, since I never paid as much attention to him, and blamed him for everything. But my mom could do no wrong. That probably wasn't very fair to her -- maybe I didn't appreciate her for the fully human person she was. I don't want to do that to my kids. Make them think that I am going to die and leave them. I know that I can't do anything about when I die. But I know that that fear is awful. I went to all the trouble to get fit and lose weight after Hideo was born, so I could be as healthy. And save my kids from that, as best I could. So the fact that I got deathly ill anyway is truly irritating. But I didn't die. And I will continue to try to be as healthy as I can so that my kids won't go through this again. Emiko used to mention my getting sick sometimes, but she hasn't mentioned it lately. I am sure Hideo has already forgotten. So maybe they won't have to worry about me as they grow up. I think my kidneys are healed. I am going to see my nephrologist November 21st, along with a dermatologist, just to make sure my hair loss isn't something serious. I scrutinize my ankles every morning, so look for signs of swelling. So far so good. I don't have any horrible tastes in my mouth. I think physically I'm on the mend. Now I just have to get my brain to mend, too. I know it just takes time. It's been three months since I got sick. My doctor said it'll take about six months for me to be completely healed physically. Three months to go.