Thursday, May 19, 2011

Coming Home After A Six Month "Vacation"

Near the end of September I was told I was free! I could finally leave Denver after waiting since May to go home. In July of 2009 I got my second heart transplant at the Denver Children's Hospital, then had to wait three months afterward to make sure I didn't reject. If you don't know: Rejecting my heart is when my T-cells and other various cells in my immune system attack my heart because it's a foreign object inside my body. Then the heart becomes weak and ill, and I would have to restart this transplant process all over again... Lucky for me, my heart was healthy afterward and my scar healed nicely. I was living in The Ronald McDonald House since May and I left near the end of September. If I had to stay any longer I think I would have exploded, you would have had to whip me off the furnished walls.

While I stayed at the Ronald McDonald House I would occasionally have mental breakdowns and cry under the covers until one of my parents noticed how unhappy I was. They would do their usual parent ways of putting a smile back on my face. Which consisted of letting me cry until my eye's were dry, making me hot chocolate and popcorn, and ending the night with watching Harry Potter. So when I was told I was able to go home by my nurse practitioner it was like I just defeating Lord Voldemort and the world became a happy cheesy cartoon again.

When we were unpacking, we decided that all of our belonging wouldn't fit in all our luggage. We had to leave everything we couldn't fit in our suitcases behind and have it sent to us by a friend.(We had a few garbage bags full of stuff we left behind) The minute I stepped on to the plane I already felt at home, and I haven't reached the front door yet. Once we landed we met up with my mom who had my dog in her car waiting for me. I haven't seen my dog since April, so you could imagine why my little pomerianan didn't leave my arms the whole forty-five minute drive back to our new apartment.

In our first apartment I didn't have my own room, I was sleeping on the couch every night I slept over. On the way back I was extremely hyper to see how everything turned out. My mom guided me to the front door once we arrived. I entered casually, dropped my suitcases, and asked where my room was. "The double doors on the right", she responded with a sneaky smile upon her face. I glanced at her, then at the doors, then at her again suspecting something. I was not expecting my two best friends to be on my bed playing UNO while waiting for me to enter. They dropped what they were doing and tackled me to the ground. Then I tackled them to the bed and we sat on my bare mattress talking for hours.

My room had the minimum amount of furniture inside it. A desk, a bed, organizing cubes, and a nightstand were the only pieces of furniture sitting in my room, before my gigantic suitcases took up the entire floor. My friends slept over that night in our new apartment. We played with our feet, found random games in my luggage, ate barbecue for dinner, then stayed up all night talking in the living room when we were supposed to be sleeping.

I was extremely happy to be home and not back in Denver in my very comfortable yet cramped prison cell. Though, I still had cardiac appointments every week to make sure I didn't have to go back to the Denver hospital. But if I was able to go back to school and redecorate my own room, I didn't mind at all.

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