I signed up for my community college, again, in August 2000, with a football-sized wound packed with gauze in my abdomen, a brain that usually worked well, and with a body that didn’t shake enough for most people to notice. I was gaining weight very quickly and had been able to walk since about the middle of July. A noticeable feeling of cold was with me all the time – keep in mind this was early August - and I was fighting a biting depression that came from waking up without a clear sense of purpose. My old life – before the nightly fevers, before the constant pain, before the hunger – was given back to me, such as it was. Most of my friends were gone to other schools or hadn’t talked to me in years, and I wasn’t sure how social I wanted to be anyways. I was too sick for work. I was alive – and I was alive, that was all I could say. I was alive, but I wasn’t living.
One of the first places I went to when I signed up for courses at my community college was our Center for Disability Services. I signed up for two classes – French and German. It was still unclear if I would ever be able to go back to school to finish my degree, but this was worth a try.
At 22 years old I was already kind of noticing how different I was from regular students – not just because my age was already putting some distance between me and other students, not just because my brain was still addled enough to feel awkward, but because every time I moved my abdomen it sounded like someone was opening up a plastic bag. Most people probably didn’t notice, but I had a feeling throughout every day, weighing my feet down, that my body fought a war with my spirit, and my spirit lost - and the feeling of my feet being heavy wasn’t because I had been out of a wheelchair for about a month.
But I enjoyed the classes I took, met some friends along the way, got the accommodations I needed, and was soon off to college again. I still met with doctors frequently, and I still had my wound debrided and packed daily, but the shrunken life I was living began to grow, slowly.
To Be Continued in Part III
One of the first places I went to when I signed up for courses at my community college was our Center for Disability Services. I signed up for two classes – French and German. It was still unclear if I would ever be able to go back to school to finish my degree, but this was worth a try.
At 22 years old I was already kind of noticing how different I was from regular students – not just because my age was already putting some distance between me and other students, not just because my brain was still addled enough to feel awkward, but because every time I moved my abdomen it sounded like someone was opening up a plastic bag. Most people probably didn’t notice, but I had a feeling throughout every day, weighing my feet down, that my body fought a war with my spirit, and my spirit lost - and the feeling of my feet being heavy wasn’t because I had been out of a wheelchair for about a month.
But I enjoyed the classes I took, met some friends along the way, got the accommodations I needed, and was soon off to college again. I still met with doctors frequently, and I still had my wound debrided and packed daily, but the shrunken life I was living began to grow, slowly.
To Be Continued in Part III