Stress Pains

Yet another year has gone by and I have not stayed committed to my blog as I have said I would.  Today I find myself here to release some the stress that I accumulated over the past few weeks.  I hope that this does not continue to be the trend.  I hope that I find time or even just a passion for something..... anything that I find worthy enough to continuously post here.  Lately I find myself to be in a rut and I have the desire to do something more or different with my  life.  I need to set goals and pursue them.  I have goals bouncing around in my head, but I NEED to actually take the time to type them out or write them down and come with a plan to pursue them.  This has especially became evident to me because as I type this I am sitting at the foot of my mother's hospital bed.  I truly hate that it takes moments like this to remind me that I have only one life to live and that I need to make the most of it because you never NEVER know what is going to happen. 

My mother has landed herself in this facility in a event  that happened in mere hours.  Or what appeared to be hours but was actually occurring over some length of time.   I brought my mother to the hospital with what we thought was just a stomachache.  This was not the case and she ended up in surgery only hours after walking through the Emergency Room doors and hours after that on a ventilator.  

A ventilator  is a machine designed to mechanically move breatheable air into and out of the lungs, to provide the mechanism of breathing for a patient who is physically unable to breathe, or breathing insufficiently.

Sounds Scary.............but is actually 20x scarier in person.  She luckily is no longer on it and is on her loooong road to recovery.  I thank the strength she has shown and the will to survive because her pilgrimage through the hospital has been quite the battle and she has the scars to prove it.  

It is the endless hours I have spent in the hospital with my mother over these past twelve days that has put a heavy weight on my chest that I need to truly cherish the moments I am given.  It has also given me a reality check that my mother is really... all.... I..... have..... left.................  

(Insert feeling of overwhelming loneliness) 

Luckily I am confident that my mother is going to be just fine.  I know it is going to take time to have her back to her normal self, but it is a wonderful feeling knowing that she is going to be okay. 

Its Personal.

I was 17 years old.

I was a punk rock kid with short pink hair.  I went to punk shows almost every night of the week.  I wore 2 belts, 30 bracelets, and socks on my wrist.  All my friends.. yea, they were in bands.  

This was the life and I was enjoying every minute of it. 

I skipped my high school graduation because I was too cool and promised my parents that they could see me walk at my college graduation. I had been accepted into a prestigious art school in New York.  

This was the last promise I made for the future. Thats because my father would in fact not get the opportunity to see me graduate from college but would actually  lose his battle with his newly diagnosed cancer only 2 months later. 

I. 

was. 

devastated.  

heck, I still am.  

I grew up overnight.  My typical day that summer, which I thought would be spent on adventures with all my friends for our last few months together before we departed for college was spent like this...

- Be woken up all hours of the night to my fathers gagging and puking. 

- Sit with my father during his chemo sessions. 

- Get extremely frustrated because everyone else that went to chemo where my father did, walked in, got their quart full of poison and..... walked out. MY father.... well he was barely coherent.  

- go home.. cry myself to sleep. 

- wake up.......mad at the world. 

- feed my father his dinner. 

- put dad to sleep.  

- go out with my friends and not tell a soul what my day consisted of.  

I am not quite sure how I got through that summer, but I do know that after my father died all I was programed to do was just rebel.  I began to drink.. ALOT and did not end up going to college. 

FAST FORWARD........

- I did end up going to college after all.  I recently graduated and am now a certified teacher.  

- What was once anger has now turned into a passion.  I am committed to finding a cure for cancer.  

This is such a emotional aspect of my life that while it has been 10 years, I still struggle to talk about it without tearing up.  I am grateful I got 17 wonderful years with my father and am looking forward to the day I have children of my own and I get to tell them all about their crazy trouble making grandpa.  :)

I am sharing this now...... because sometimes I get so caught up in life and the drama that goes with it, that sometimes I forget who I am and what my purpose is.  

AND now.. I would like to leave you with a photo taken yesterday during a tour of the new Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.  This was an opportunity given to me because of my role in the H Foundation.

A New BEGINNING.

Ah. A new Blog.  A Clean Slate.  A Fresh Feeling.  An untouched canvas.  A opportunity for a new start.

I am in such a different spot in my life today than I have been in before.  This spot is much different and unfamiliar, yet............invigorating.  

So where exactly am I at today?

I am a recent college graduate from Concordia University of Chicago with my degree in Education.  I graduated four months ago and have yet to prepare even my cover letter for my resume!  That is because I unexpectedly scored a job as a executive director of a non-profit organization.   I know, nothing like teaching. 

This job revealed a part of my life that I had tried to completely shut out for years.  The painful years of when my father lost his battle to cancer.  However, my new occupation has allowed me to take  something I allowed to negatively impact me and create it into a spark of passion and devotion.

I am committed to finding a cure.  Okay, I won't find a cure, but I will raise as much money as humanly possible to make sure that someone else does.  

While my job does take up a huge chunk of my days, not having school work in the mix of that has finally gave me the free time I deserve.  So what do I do with that free time?  

Sleep. Facebook. Eat. Sleep. Pinterest. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Exercise.  and now...... BLOG. 

I hope starting this blogging thing sparks my inner adventure junkie... otherwise I am not quite sure what I will have to write about...