2001-2006 (in summary)

I was 15 in 2001. It was about a month before school started. I was going to be a sophomore. I mysteriously ended up with mono. (Yes it was mysterious, because even though they call mono the kissing disease, I had not kissed anyone, and I have no idea how I got it, but I had it bad). This might have been the cause of my ataxia. That’s what one of my past neurologists said anyway.
Haha. Funny story that doesn’t have a lot to do with anything, but I don’t want to bore you with my blabber all the time, so I’ll tell you. When I had mono, my Dad, Steve, and Step-Mom, Nancy, were re-doing the kitchen, so we had boxes of stuff, including the microwave, in the living room. I had woken up in the middle of the day hungry. Everyone was at work and I had a cheeseburger from Wendy’s in the fridge. They don’t do it anymore, but at the time Wendy’s wrapped their sandwiches in foil wrappers. See where this is going? I wasn’t thinking and put the cheeseburger in the microwave while it was still in the wrapper. Fire! Haha. It scared me to death! On the plus side, I realized what I had done before it was in there long and it only burnt a hole through the wrapper.
2001 was so fun for me, NOT! I don’t remember having mono anymore, but it was maybe a week before school started and I was at my Dad’s alone, and I had a new inhaler. You’ve probably seen the commercials for it. It’s a purple disk, Advair. Anyway, it’s full of steroids. Wondering why this matters? I used the inhaler and it put me on the floor in the living room, unable to move without my chest killing me with pain. My mom was the only one I could get a hold of, 20 minutes away, and she rushed there and found me in the same spot on the floor gasping for breath. Needless to say that I was taken to the ER where they found out I had a heart problem. Heart problems and steroids don’t mix.
They thought I had WPW, Wolf Parkinson White, which is an extra nerve or something in the heart and blah blah. They did a heart catheterization with the intentions of getting rid of the extra nerve and "fixing" me. In order to do this, I was of course out of it with anesthetic; they had to get my heart to race like it does when I have chest pains. Two or three times they had my heart racing to the point where they couldn’t get it to slow down and they had to use the paddles on me. And then, as if not fixing me wasn’t bad enough, I threw up all night and was in bed for a week because I had such a hard time coming out of the anesthesia. I couldn’t even open my eyes until the next day.
So they finally found out I have left ventricle hypertrophy and I went through all that crap for nothing. (I swear I was having anxiety attacks that caused this) I think they can fix this. I have heard something about alcohol burning the excess muscle or something.

Back to my ataxia. I don’t even remember when it started. I went to all of my high school homecomings and proms, in high heels I might add! I just thought I sucked at walking in heels. I think that was my problem my freshman, sophomore, and maybe my junior year. Senior year I knew something was wrong because I was scared of the steps and nervous about falling all the time, not just when I wore heels. I made it through graduation in heels without any incidents! I was so proud of myself! I graduated from high school in May 2004.
In September of 2004, I started at a technical college to obtain my degree in Business Management (even though writing and photography are my passions). This is where I met my best friend, Bill. I met a lot of great people.
I had to teach myself how to play euchre though because everyone played and no one would teach. I turned out to be a pretty great euchre player, if I do say so myself.
I graduated in 2006 with my associates in business management.
In 2005 I went to the beach with one of my best friends from high school and two new friends. This was the place of my first and last hangover, and the place where I realized that it’s easy to fall for a jerk if you are at the beach. Haha. I made new friends, and new memories, and I can tell you that I fell coming out of out hotel one night on our way to a club, and a ton of people saw my underwear (I was wearing a skirt). I learned that I can’t go into the ocean past my ankles or I’ll never get out. With my balance messed up, I went out to my waist and had the hardest time getting back in. We’ll just say that I drank a lot of water and spent the rest of my time in a chair at the waters edge.
Up until 2005 or 2006, everything was bearable. I got around pretty good and I was able to work at a retail store. I had a normal life. I went out with friends and even though I have only drank a few times; I am good at acting stupid, so I got along with drunks good. I just never expected to one day walk like I am drunk most of the time too.