ER Visit

I don't often like to share negative experiences, especially about my health, on forms of social media.  But today I had a more uplifting take on an ER visit I had had yesterday and wanted to share it through a picture I took of my ring I wear always that is engraved with the word HOPE on it.  I had gone to the ER after finally giving into my mother pleading with me to go because of all the fainting I was experiencing daily (8 to 10 times to be more precise).  I have a very hard time being willing to seek medical care because of how many times over the course of the last ten years that I have turned to doctors for help and been told to go home because it's all in my head.  Being told that you're making something up that is so painful and debilitating to your life is hard to hear over and over again.  For many years I have told myself that if I act like a normal person, do the things a normal person my age would do, like get a job and go to school, that I would in turn be normal.  But the truth of the matter is I am not normal.  I never have been.  All through grade school, middle school and the majority in high school I was chronically ill, missing months at a time up until my senior year when they finally got tired of it and kicked me out.  I did graduate high school, but I missed out on so many things that kids get to do.  Sometimes I wonder if my social skills are up to par with everyone else's.  Am I no better at socializing then a home schooled kid (no offense to anyone who home schools their children)?  I wonder if I'm coming off as awkward as I feel or if everyone is as insecure as I am.  I wonder what it would have been like to go to prom and actually attend school with my friends.  There are so many things I think I've missed out on in the last decade of my life and it makes me wonder what it would feel like to run and not pass out; to go hiking and not faint; to go out to eat at a restaurant and not get sick.  Is that what it feels like to be normal?  And when I truly think about it, I don't want to be “normal”.  Yes I want to be healthy and do all those things, but I have learned a lot that I wouldn't have learned in a classroom anywhere.  I do want to move on to the next chapter of my life and hopeful that chapter includes better health but more importantly I want it to be what God has planned out for me.  Which brings me back to the ER visit.  After sitting there all day, passing out at the start of the IV, after taking a gulp of juice, after standing up, and also for no reason at all, and then still being told to go home and just deal with it, I felt okay.  Yes it felt crummy to hear it again, plus the day had been long and miserable, filled with tests and migraines but I was okay because I have hope.  It was so relieving to know I still had hope that God would see me through another day, just as He has done every day, the good ones and especially the bad.  I thought I would share this message of hope with a picture of my ring on Facebook with the caption “After a discouraging and hard day at the ER yesterday, I slipped my rings back on and was reminded...there is always HOPE.  Hope that tomorrow is better and since today is yesterday's tomorrow I've already been proven right because today is better, I'm not in the ER with an IV and that's better enough for me:)”.  Underneath the caption was a picture of my ring on my finger in a photo I had edited to say “Never Loose Your HOPE”.  I shared this with my little circle of friends because I wanted to focus on the positive and not on the negative of that visit.  I wanted to remind myself by telling someone else.  I was surprised and very touched by the out pouring of love I received following the status update.  I had wondered if I should even share it because I don't like looking like I'm fishing for attention or coming off with a very “woe is me” attitude.  People were so sweet with their responses, wondering what they could do to help and did I need dinner to be brought to me and my family for a few days.  All of that also reminded me that not only am I not alone because I have God on my side, I'm not alone because people are generally loving, caring, good human beings willing to lend a hand or shoulder to cry on when one is needed.