Dragonfly Retreat

I just had one of the most amazing weekends of my entire life, one of the best actually. I went to the Dragonfly Heart Camp Retreat at NorthBay in Maryland. I didn't realize that this weekend would make me feel so much better and hopeful. I met other heart transplant recipients, a lung transplant recipient, and pulmonary hypertension patients, in addition to some medical personnel. I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend. I can't even express how amazing it was for me and for my new friends. 

I knew that there were other transplant recipients running around somewhere, but I never could find them...until now. I met people who are more than 5 years out of transplant, even 15 years and more. It was incredible. It gives me hope for the future. I'm not a statistic. No one gets to tell me that because I'm a transplant recipient I'll only live for a certain amount of time, because of the people I met. 

I'm not going to be able to say everything that I want to say, but I'm going to at least try to say some more. I just have so much to say about this weekend. We all learned something and had the chance to discuss a lot of things. It was nice to be around people who understand me because they've been there. They know how it feels and so I don't have to feel alone in the world anymore. I have a strong support team now with people who truly do understand what it's like. This experience has made me stronger. I now take my medicine without my applesauce. I refuse to go back to it because if my friends can take theirs without something like that, then I can too. 

While at camp, I found myself starting to think 'Wow, your life was so much worse than mine,' but then I realized that we've all had it tough and that includes me too. I can't say that their experience is worse than mine or that they feel more pain than I do. We've all had it rough, but it's made us so much stronger and all the more motivated. We are inspirations to each other, because each one of us has fought their own fight and still continues to move on and push for another day to live. We all have a purpose in life. 

Feelings aside, this was an extremely fun filled weekend. There was ziplinig, the swing, rock climbing, indoor bonfires, smores, playing ping pong, table hockey, and pool, and just having fun with each other. The girls and I stayed up the second night to talk. It was a lot of fun. 

My thoughts are all over the place. I really miss camp. I miss my friends. I miss being able to take medicine with other people. I miss doing all of those fun activities. I miss having breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. I miss the story telling and the crafts. I miss everything. And I am a little sad, but I know that I'll see everyone again. Even if I don't, they're always with me because of the special bond we've created. No one can break that. Together, we are stronger. I'm not alone. 

It was a life changing experience.

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"Five heart transplant recipients, ten souls" - Derek 

"Shit's about to hit the fan" - Bre (She said something like this, haha)

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Link to a compilation of pictures and a video from Dragonfly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljytvb264JU

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I've dubbed Johns Hopkins as JHOP since Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is shortened to CHOP. :)

Brain Dump

I have a lot on my mind at the moment. I don't know if it is normal for me or not. I've been overly emotional for the past few days. I'd like to blame that on my medication, but I can't blame my emotions on my medication forever, especially when I'm not even on steroids anymore. No, whatever I'm feeling is a result of my mind wandering and searching. Why is my mind wandering and what am I searching so desperately for? I still don't know yet. This entire post is going to be a jumbled mess of thoughts, more so than usual so I apologize in advance. 

I was thinking about my DCM friend, Carol, today. I've been thinking of her every now and then. She hasn't emailed me lately. I've been meaning to email her, but I don't want to keep giving her my life story. It's not fair to her. I wonder how she and her family are doing, especially her grandson. She tells me about his life when it relates to what I say to her. I should email her soon and make sure everything is okay. 

There's something important that I still haven't done. I need to send a letter to my donor family. It's absolutely necessary that I write to them this summer. I want them to know how grateful I am for the decision they made. I don't mean to open up their wounds, but I need to reach out to them. I need to know about the girl whose death gave me my life back. I need to know about her.

I was thinking about sleeping early tonight. Early meaning before 2 in the AM. I'm still awake though. Like I mentioned already, I've been overly emotional. I don't know why. Maybe it's just who I am. If that's the case, then I hate that about myself. Anyway, I wanted to sleep early because I was starting to feel depressed. Then, I noticed that Casey had texted me. Her text prompted me to stay awake and blog instead. 

I've been feeling a mixture of sadness and jealousy for a while. I feel unwanted by certain people. It's almost as though I'm not good enough to be friends with them. I'm jealous because I'm not needed in their lives. I could run away and those people wouldn't care one bit. They wouldn't wonder where I've gone or if I'm even safe. I've realized that we cross paths with many people in life and walk with them for some time on the same path. The sad truth is that we often go our own way without ever walking down another path together again. And then we wonder if our loyalty meant anything at all. 

Casey and I talked about dreams via text messaging. Her dreams are strange, but they seem to be in the norm, whatever that may be. I'm glad I can remember dreams after I wake up, but the details, the most important ones at that, often become fuzzy for me. I'd like to believe that I write down my dreams correctly according to what happens in them, but I can never be entirely sure.

I like dreaming. Lately, I've wanted to stay in my dream world instead of living in the real world, where I've been riding a coaster of silly emotions. Dreams are lovely and sometimes much better than reality. In dreams, anything and everything is possible. Of course, that should hold true for reality as well, but I don't think it does since we are limited by ourselves and those around us. Dreams are special for many reasons, but I'll just give a few. Unlike real life, you can see anyone in dreams, including those who are no longer of the real world, here on Earth. Another wondrous thing about dreams is that they can take place in any setting and even in any colour; I have yet to dream in black and white or anything else besides full colour. I think I hear sounds within my dreams because I sometimes remember things that seem to have been said. Maybe dreams are like movies with the sound turned off and the captions turned on. I've always thought that dreams were interesting, kind of like a second life. Truthfully, I sometimes enjoy my second life better than this one.

I feel better now, much cleaner. I'm sure there's plenty of junk left in my brain that I forgot to sweep out. When it comes to be too much, I'll clean up again. Right now, I'm ready to sleep and see if I can dream. Even if I don't dream tonight, it'll be okay since Alley and Taylor will be coming over. I can't wait to see them.

Mentioning of Dreams, a False Achievement, and a Dissection

I had a strange dream last night. All of my dreams are so strange. Then again, who doesn't have strange dreams? I can hardly remember what happened in the dream now, all I know is that it was weird. I only consider my dreams to be odd because of the people who appear in them. 

This information is irrelevant, but according to my dreams I have a crush on a guy that I know of but don't personally know; that was another dream altogether. For the first time ever, I had a dream in which I was bleeding; again, this is NOT the dream I mentioned in the very beginning but I feel like sharing part of it. An old friend from my middle school years had stabbed (I don't want to use this word, but I can't think of anything else better at the moment) my middle finger, my index finger, and my thumb with a knife (actually poke is more of an accurate word); my thumb bled and I wiped the blood on his face and shirt. Weird stuff.

I like my dreams though, for the most part anyway. Dreams are a whole other world where anything is possible. Even if I stop seeing people in person, I can meet them in my dreams. I can't meet them by choice, but the right people are always shown or mentioned for each and every dream that I've had and remember.

Time to talk about what happened in school. I really feel the need to mention this because it bothers me so much. Today, I found myself in the auditorium walking up to the stage to accept an award for outstanding student in U.S. History from Mrs. Andrews. When I shook her hand, it felt all wrong. I did nothing to deserve that award. I want to appreciate the fact that I got the award but I can't. Sadly, I'm not passionate about history. I'd like to be but I'm just not. I don't understand why I received that award, all I know is that I am undeserving of it. I hope that I can learn to be passionate about history someday. I'm not a history girl, but I'd like for that to change just a bit. 

The most exciting part of today was anatomy. Big surprise, right? We got the chance to dissect fetal pigs. It was really cool and actually made sense. The fetal pigs were bigger than I expected them to be, I thought they'd be a lot smaller than they actually were. I had the honor of touching the heart, the liver, and one of the lungs. I also got to poke the brain. Those piggies have huge lungs. The liver was a remarkable size too. I think it's bizarre how excited I was during the dissection. Dissections almost seem cruel. It's as if it's some form of entertainment and enjoyment for us. I won't lie, I do enjoy dissections. I don't care if that makes me seem cruel, it's all to satisfy my curiosity and love for science. Dissections amaze me. I can't wait until I get to dissect a cat!

Side Notes:

- Maybe I'll share one of my crazy dreams one of these days 

- I love Billy Andrews! (Yes, I call him Billy. I picked up that habit from my sister.)
- R.I.P. Babe and George

Wants and Dreams

I've been thinking a lot recently about what I want in life. I've realized that while I don't have a real future mapped out for myself or anything along the lines of that, there's still much that I want to try, to learn, to accomplish, to feel, to make, etc. Ready to hear this long list? Err, I mean see...ready to see this long list?

What I want/dream of for myself:

- Confidence, to believe in who I am

- Independence, to do things on my own without having someone by my side every second

- To feel every emotion that I can, not just happiness and sadness

- To look back on all the fun times I've had and be able to smile instead of crying my eyes out

- To have no regrets or very few if I do at all

- To accept the gift that was given to me and understand that it is mine now (thanks to a few special people, I'm well on my way to fully accepting it)

- To be more understanding of others and be able to understand them a little better

- To be less of a socially awkward person

- To continue to be a creeper, because it's what I'm best at

- To never stop loving 

- To remember all that I can

- To appreciate the people around me more

- To live a life full of happiness and joy, sadness and hurt, anger and annoyance, disappointment, curiosity, pain, and above all, love.

What I want/dream of for my friends:

- A future that satisfies them

- To experience and feel all emotions on their own and not through others

- To understand that life and people are precious

- To let them know that I wouldn't be who I am without each and every one of them

What I want to do/dream of doing: 

- To learn how to drive (yes, I can't drive)

- To learn how to ride a bike (yes, I don't know how to ride a bike)

- To learn how to swim (yeah, I don't know how to do anything, haha)

- To ride on a plane again

- To go sledding with Matthew, Paul, and Elizabeth 

- To have a snowball fight with a group of friends

- To go to New York with Matthew, Paul, and Elizabeth like we planned to

- To go to an anime convention (with Alley, Taylor, Lauren, Kasey, Haley, and Tianhui; not all at once of course...but that would be fun!)

- To cosplay (just once in my life)

- To beat Anh in one round of DDR (this might just remain a dream, haha)

- To hang out with Casey and Deepak (Tomy) every now and then (it will happen, it must...please?) 

- To have an anatomy group reunion 

- To write handwritten letters to a friend (I promise that I'll do this)

- To watch The Grudge with Brittany and Gee (this will be interesting) 

- To go out for cheesecake with Allie

- To go on long walks with friends and hold hands

- To talk on the phone with a friend for hours and hours

- To "dance" in the rain

- To have a cheesy typical romance moment occur (just once!)

This is all that I can think of at the moment, there will be more to come later. I realize that a lot of what I want to do/dream of doing involves the here and now. I'm sure it'll change as time passes, but I like my lists for now. I didn't include anything about my family in this one because I felt like I needed to dedicate this more towards myself and my friends.

I decided that I don't like this anymore. Too sappy, even for me. But I'll keep it here anyway because it is the honest truth. These are things that I want to do or dream of doing. Still, I need to write about something that's not sappy for a change. Maybe my hatred of Day 1s? Too weak? I'll think of something...

I'm silly, that's all.