I still have amazing friends who have supported me tremendously in the last year and a half and I am continually grateful for their love and support in my endeavors.
Now onto the reason I felt compelled to write today: My Birthday. My birthdays in the last couple of years haven't always been the greatest and so I was finding that I didn't care that much if I celebrated or not. Yesterday, however, something struck me and made me re-evaluate my life. I can't explain exactly what "it" was, but all of a sudden, I decided that I really do need to take the opportunity to celebrate my life at every opportunity. You see, not a lot of you know this, but I came VERY close to not being here at all. But, thanks to my mother's exceptional instincts, I was not a stillborn. It's hard to fathom that I was almost not born and I think I've spent my entire life ignoring that important fact about me. My due date was actually April 10 but when my mom saw the doctor on April 4 she explained that "something didn't feel right." The doctor decided that I would be born by C-Section the next morning. I have since been told that if another 24 hours had passed, I would have died in utero. Due to some unexplained circumstance, I was born with very little blood in my system - and by very little, I mean VERY little, as in I was about as white as a sheet of bright white paper. My heart was working so hard to pump what little blood I had that it's a miracle that I didn't have a heart attack. I was given a blood transfusion at around 12 hours old and eventually diagnosed with Acute Anemia of Unknown Origin - I was literally tested for EVERY type of anemia known to man and each test came back negative (I have since learned that my particular type of anemia - I believe - is called Diamond Blackfan Anemia). My parents spent months going to various hematologists and doctors to try and figure out why my blood levels continued to drop. And then, something happened. I don't know what, but I suppose it can be counted as a miracle: one month, a doctor told my parents that if my levels continued to drop, I would have to have a bone marrow transplant. Low and behold, the next month, my levels rose just a little bit. And from there, it's basically history.
Part of the reason that I've ignored this important factoid about myself for so long is that I just simply don't remember it. All of what I have told you is what occurred within the first six months to a year of my life and the story is what I've been told happened to me. I think it would be much different if this instance occurred later in my life and I actually remembered being sick but the fact is that I don't. And perhaps that is a blessing in disguise. And now, for whatever reason, I feel the need to celebrate that I'm alive and well and should take every advantage of that.
I like to think that I'm generally a positive person with a positive outlook on life (maybe that's reminiscent of what happened to me at birth; but I've usually attributed it to my sister's positive outlook on life - and let's face it, compared to what she's been through, my story isn't incredibly impressive). But lately, I've been trying more and more to focus on the blessings in my life and I've come to the conclusion that I am truly blessed. Blessed with an amazing support system of friends and family who have both seen and loved me at my worst (which has saved my life in a very wonderful and spiritual way) and praised me at my best. I was blessed by an anonymous person who took the time to donate their blood in order to give me life, so if you want to feel like a superhero, go donate blood because to someone who needs it, it is a huge blessing. Most importantly, and unfortunately not realized until just yesterday, I am blessed just to be here; to exist; to live. I have an amazing life, and I don't want to forget/ignore that fact ever again.
Celebrate Life!!!
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