just waiting to drown

I am freaking out.....

I'm so sick of living this life of... sickness. I'm sick of living like this, with an inability to go out and do anything fun, having to depend on other people completely, being a damn burden to the people i depend on, always trying to remember what doses of medicine i still need to take and what i've already taken, just not being able to DO much of anything. I hate having to depend on medicine to take away physical pain, because it takes away the pain, but it leaves you completely lifeless. And being lifeless like that eats away at my spirit. My joyful, happy, bubbly, spunky, cheery, energetic, vivacious spirit. I no longer feel like I am Emily, I don't feel like myself. And I hate that there's nothing I can do about it. Because, if I don't take the drugs they prescribed me to help me, then I'm not going to get better. But while I'm on the road to "getting better," basically I'm just this blob of cells lying in the dark in a bed, alone, feeling nothing but feeling everything all at the same time. Feeling nothing, being numbed up so nothing hurts while 2 tiny little stones move down through a tiny tube inside my body, but my heart hurts, my mind hurts- these medicines give me headaches, they make me dizzy, they make me nauseous, they make me sleepy and loopy, I act retarted in front of Nick and I'm glad he's patient because honestly I would get so sick of me.

Here's the thing about strength. There are two kinds, there's inner strength, and there's outer strength. Being strong doesn't mean you have either of these during a time of great trial and hardship. Being strong doesn't mean I can be in the middle of passing a kidney stone and i'm crying and then all the sudden because I'm such a strong person I can make that kidney stone fall right out of me, or that I can sit up in the middle of all that pain and say praise God I am in all this pain right now. No. That is NOT what being strong is about. Being strong comes from after all the pain has run its course. It comes when the hardship is overcome, and it comes through when I can say I knew inside my soul that all along I would come out alive after all of this pain and suffering, and I did. It comes through when I can get myself out of bed and feel the strength in my bones and my muscles and tendons as I start doing physically active things I couldn't do when my body was passing these stones. It comes from attitude. It comes from being a survivor. It comes from my testimony after my suffering has subsided for the time being. Pain is pain. Some people tolerate more pain than others, but I guarantee any person out there, no matter if they're a body builder or a thin, little college student like myself, or a mountain climber, or whatever- this pain would bring them to their knees, crying. And that doesn't make a person not strong. It makes them a person who is in pain. And that can't be helped. There are a lot of sicknesses out there that honestly can be prevented and shouldn't be that hard to prevent and a lot of it is common sense... but then there are things like kidney stones. My ER doctor from Monday said it the best: "sometimes you just can't beat genetics." And they asked me question after question about all kinds of stone-related prevention techniques, and every one of them I could tell them yes I do that, yes I drink that, yes I tried that. But I still have 2 kidney stones inside of me. You do the math- it's genetics. Can't be helped.

Strength is not tested by pain and suffering, it comes OUT of it and FROM it. It comes after the fact. There is no question I am super weak right now. But I am a strong person- ask anyone and they'll vouch for me on that one. I am a strong person because of the way I come out of these periods of pain and suffering. I'm so weak right now, in every way possible. And it's driving me crazy. I want to jump out of bed and go walk around campustown with my friends and go out to a movie and go do this and go do that, but I can't. I can hardly walk to the bathroom right across the hall without almost falling over from dizziness and faintness. I'm angry- angry at genetics. I'm pissed off. I'm depressed I have done nothing but struggle this week to get to class, which I rarely accomplished, and to make it to meals. I'm ashamed that I have depended on Nick for almost everything this week, that he has seen me high on vicodin and helped me to the bathroom to throw up, that he has been forced to hold onto me so that I don't fall over walking me back to my room at night. I'm embarrassed, I'm upset, I'm so frustrated with this disease. I'm mad that people think that I should just stop whining already and get on with my life- anyone out there who thinks that should probably get a kidney stone and tell me how you feel, and then try having them for 6 years and realize you will have them until you die, THEN come to me and tell me to stop whining.

the end.