Tear Drop Splash...

Have you ever run out into the street in the middle of a rain storm, flung your arms out and spun until it felt as though gravity was going to pull your fingers from you. Eyes closed, face lifted to the sky letting the rain cool your tear stained face... Have you ever felt as though your chest had a huge hole in it, so you walk around with your arms wrapped tightly about you, holding everything together... It's in those moments of weakness, of darkness, and un-surety, when keeping the faith that everything will be okay, and that everything happens for a reason is the hardest. But it's in those moments that faith is the most needed, and most often lost.

I am struggling with everything I have going on, and I am taking a huge risk in telling all of this to the world, but I need to believe there is still some hope out there, because I think my full glass may have sprung a leak. It's coming up on the year mark, for the day I first went into hospital care. It's been 314 days since my ambulance ride to Alta View Hospital. 306 days since the life-light from Alta View to LDS Hospital. 295 since I was released from LDS Hospital, and 274 from the day the picc line was removed and I was discharged from all hospital care of any and all kinds. I still struggle with all that I went through, and all that happened. It all came about so fast, and slow at the same time. I never really talk about everything I went through because I don't really understand everything that happened, and I'm not sure that I want to. I've always tried to live my life with no regrets; and so far I've done alright, but I remember everything I heard, and felt in the most crucial of days... and I don't know where to turn when the memories hit. Knowing you are dying, and knowing your chances of survival are not 100%, watching, and hearing your family say goodbye, and prepare for what may happen. Listening to the nurses whisper, and knowing they aren't sure whether you'll survive this next surgery because it is so close to the one before it. To be told you could die on the table... To hear the people who make up your world, your very best friend, your little sister, your Jo, your uncle Jesse, mom and dad, cry, beg you not to give up, just to fight for a little longer. To hear that from the people who fill your heart, who have pulled you through everything, tell you they love you... and not being able to say it back... how do you process that? The two voices that stay with me are the two that happened over the phone. Stanley and Leesa. The day before I underwent the surgery to remove the infection from my heart, and lungs; I had a consult with Dr. Collins. One of the best thoracic heart surgeons in the state. (or so I was told.) He explained the procedure, answered all of my questions, and my dads. He was straight forward, honest, no sugar coating. I appreciated the honesty, but one thing bothered me. I had very little strength. It had only been two days since I had walked around the ICU at Alta with nurse Kim. I had started to cry because I couldn't breathe, I couldn't hold my head up for very long, my feet felt like lead, and I couldn't understand why. I had been getting better. The next morning I was awakened to Dr. Meads sitting on the edge of my bed, with nurse Kim, and a few others standing about me checking for different things. I was told that I was fading fast and they were getting a life-light team to transfer me to University Hospital. It didn't feel right to me, but there was little I could do. I could feel my life slipping. My vision was fading, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to fight much longer. I remember feeling like I was in a dream, as I was prepped for the life-light and surgery all at the same time. I was taken to LDS instead of University, and only the Lord knows why LDS was the better hospital. I remember waking up that evening after the 2nd emergency surgery I'd had in a week, and begging for water. No one could hear me, as the treach had blocked all sound. I remember grabbing my daddy, tears streaming and still, begging for water. He couldn't understand, and the look of helplessness on his face just made the tears come faster. I hated the nurse for wearing pink. Now to be told I had a 70% chance of survival, but it was all on me. I didn't have the strength, and I knew it. I had one moment of weakness. I had nothing left to give, and I wanted to give up. I was tired. I felt Stanley should know. For some reason, I felt he deserved to know I was letting go. When he reacted instantly, and his phone call, asking me to replay Come What May in my head over and over and over again, and then to hear his voice break as he said I Love You. I lost it, I couldn't do it, I couldn't stand making him cry. I frantically tried to push buttons to say it back, but no matter what I did, it wasn't my voice, so it wasn't the same. My mom's family came in to wish me luck and to say their goodbye's. I got a phone call from Leesa in the middle of all the last pictures. She told me she loved me, that I couldn't leave her. I had to say with her because she didn't think she could do it without me. I laid there powerless, listening to my 14 year old sister sobbing on the phone. I couldn't leave it at that. I couldn't just do nothing, but I had nothing left to give. I received one last priesthood blessing from my bishopric, and the elders quorum president, and my home teacher Aaron. My mom and Leesa came in soon after that, and Leesa came and gave me a hug. I refused to let go for a long time. I just sat there and cried with her. My heart drowning in all the 'I love you's, and please don't cry's' I could ever possibly have to say, but didn't have the power. I had 6 hours to the most dangerous surgery I hope to ever have in my life. This was my last chance to say good bye. The nurse came in to insert the artline (a devise that will show the blood pressure wirelessly. meaning no stupid arm cuff) for the surgery. Just as with the picc line. I could feel every little thing despite the numbing shots. My body is extremely sensitive, but my pain tolerance is high. However, that was the single most excruciatingly painful experience I have ever had in my life. I was sobbing, but I couldn't move, or he'd mis-insert it, and that could be dangerous. My mom held my hand for both comfort (for the both of us) and a way for me to concentrate on staying still. Because of the silence, and the look of pain that was on my face, Leesa left the room. She was in hysterics, and couldn't handle watching me go through that. After 2 hours of trying, both the nurse, and my mom crying with me, we called in my night nurse Katie, and asked her to phone down to the OR and ask if they could put the artline in once I was under the effects of anesthesia. Due to the crying and the stress, I had to ask to be suctioned so that I could breath again. (It was more my air numbers dropping, and the alarm going off saying I was suffocating.) To have your air taken from you is one of the most terrifying things a person will go through. That is your life source. I had no control over my air, for 3 weeks, I had no control over it. When the tube would get blocked from different things, they'd do what is called 'suctioning.' It's where they insert a straw-like tube down the treach tube, and it vacuums out the blockage, along with what air I did have. The force of it would cause my chest to cave in, and I'd have to cough against it to open my lungs, or we couldn't get everything out. It hurt like hell, but I had to breathe, and there was no other way. (picture one of those airtight storage bags as your lungs, and coughing against the force trying to get all the air from the bag.) I grew to dread the moments when I could feel my airway blocked, when I'd have to cough, and could see the blood clots, and bits of infection come back through the tube... I don't know how to get the images from my head. I don't know how to process everything that happened anymore because I feel I should be fully healed by now. It's been nearly a year, but it is still a daily struggle, the incision lines, and lung tube sites still ache, and the muscles are still sore. I love my life, and cherish every moment I have ever dearly, but I have my moments when I wonder why. I have those nights when I wake up in tears because I am flying above Salt Lake City saying goodbye. I am listening to Stanley cry over the phone, and ask me to keep going. I am watching Leesa leaving the room sobbing because I couldn't handle the pain. Everyone is taking one last picture, and I am tied to a monitor helpless. I have my moments when I get quiet because the loneliness in my struggle will hit. I have my moments of weakness because I don't understand what the struggle is meant for if just to lose my best friend, get into a car accident, and fight with my family and those people who stood with me through those 3 1/2 months. I don't know how to do it all sometimes. I blame my dad for disappearing, and resenting me as a kid. I blame my mom for the things she can't control. I blame Stanley for leaving, for his secrets, and I blame him for running away. I blame myself most of the time, for having what I consider to be weakness. And, I shouldn't. It isn't fair, or warranted, or deserved by any of these people, or those that I get frustrated with, or upset with. I will be forever grateful for the fasting and prayers that saved my life. I am happy. I have a very happy disposition, especially now, oddly enough. I am forever an optimist to a fault, but I have my moments. There are those moments when I feel so alone, when I have no where to go because the memories, the images, the scents, and the sounds are forever with me. I have days when I miss breathing to the sound of the rain drops hitting my ICU window. (It rained nearly every day I was in both of those hospitals) There are moments when I miss that awful hospital bed, and having only to focus on healing. When all I had to do was breath through the pain, and push the nurse call button when I couldn't.  Monday was one of those days when I ran outside in the middle of the freezing rain, and came in only when my fingers were numb from the cold, and it had started to snow. Monday was on of those moments when I walked around with my arms holding my insides in, because I could feel a breeze through the hole in my chest. Monday was one of those rare instances when I wondered why.

Have you ever craved the gray clouds, the sound of the pitter patter of rain dancing around you as it cascades through the air. Have you ever prayed for the colors that come when the sun is pushed out of the sky by a strong, and wet southern wind... just because rain fills the holes...