"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." – Helen Keller
Mr. Lewin watched my videos last night. Two times, in fact. He loved it and showed it to his wife.
His wife wants to have my video. She wants to share it with other people. She’s also a teacher, so she might share it with her students too.
This is a great opportunity to get my story out there!
I’ve been sneezing and blowing my nose all day.
I’m scared that I’m sick. I don’t want to be sick.
I don’t want my heart to be rejected by my body. Or my heart to have an infection.
Okay, so if I’m sick, is it really that bad? There’s a very little chance of that happening.
There’s still a chance though.
Idk maybe I’m just too worried.
I do everything to protect myself from being sick. In school when someone even coughs I instantly switch seats to the back of the classroom. I never participate in activities outside because I don’t want to get cold or muddy.
Oh wait… yes I do! Yes I do!
Everyday I swim at night.
Everyday I swim at night!
The one thing that’s supposed to be shielding my heart from infections, is giving my heart infections?
It’s also December. Ever since late November it’s been more and more cold.
Well, I have a doctors appointment tomorrow at Stanford.
Should I tell them about this? Is it even important?
They have dying children to take care of. Should I tell them I think I might be sick?
I was wrong about Maddy.
Today I went to Happy Lemon to meet up with Maddy, the Pink Dot Club president. The Pink Dot Club is an organ donation club at my High School.
Remember October 2, 2018? That was the Pink Dot Club meeting which was supposed to be dedicated to Nicole. When Maddy glossed over the fact that Nicole died to talk about a class instead, I got mad.
Here’s an excerpt from my journal entry:
Club officers, that guy that got sent to detention because he confessed that he hated Ms. Hewitt or whatever has nothing to do with the club. Yet you spent more time on him than Nicole during the meeting that was supposed to be dedicated to her. Club officers, that guy is alive. He is breathing, he is eating, he isn’t in pain. Nicole is dead.
Club officers, I wonder how much you even care about your own club. Why are you officers of this club, when you can’t even dedicate a meeting without talking about your AP classes? Oh wait, I know! College! Club officers, you’re only here because you want to get into a good college. None of you care that a 10 year old girl is dead, you only care that it’ll look good on your college applications.
Yeah, that’s a little passive aggressive. Or just aggressive.
Later that day I emailed Amy McCarthy, someone who had a kidney transplant. This is another excerpt:
I thought the Pink Dot Club (the transplant club at Foothill) would be different but it’s exactly the same. Even the club president cares more about her 4 AP classes than she does about the patients at Stanford and UCSF.
Sometimes I feel like I want to drop out of school. I don’t want to be surrounded by people talking about APs or Colleges or Test Answers or SATs. It makes me angry how everyone only cares about themselves: what grades they have, what classes they have, what friends they have!
Reflecting back, I wasn’t angry because they ignored Nicole. Deep down inside, I think I was mad because I would never fit in with them.
If they glossed over Nicole’s death, then it implies they care more about their classes than someone that just died.
And their entire premise is for organ donation, and helping those waiting for an organ.
If they don’t care about organ donation, then where do I go?
Well, I was wrong. Or at least about Maddy.
Maddy is doing the Pink Dot Club because she wants to, not because of college. In fact, she didn’t even have college on her mind when creating this club.
It was because her cousin (who’s also named Justin) died from a heart disease.
I thought, “Her cousin just gave her the idea, but she did this for college.”
I was wrong, so I’m sorry Maddy.
Someone from my school’s yearbook team interviewed me today.
Her name is Arushi Avachat. She was, like, super professional. She’d make an awesome journalist.
My school will include me in their yearbook. Woohoo! They’ll give me two pages about my heart transplant and my blog.
I met Arushi during study hall. Study hall is pretty new to my school, and it’s kinda meh.
First she asked me questions about my condition, and what led to my heart transplant (If you also want to know visit About Me). Then she asked me questions about my blog. Who do I hope to reach, what is my message, and why I did it.
I think a question that caught me off guard was when Arushi asked me what I wanted people to know about me.
I answered that I wanted people to know that there was more to me than my heart transplant.
But is that true?
I mean, what other qualities do I have other than as someone who had a heart transplant? Other than my heart transplant, how exactly am I unique?
In the hospital before my heart transplant, I met other people and their only defining trait was their condition. I was afraid of becoming one of them, and guess what? I’m one of them.
I think that scares me. My life revolved around my heart transplant, and it still does.
I literally have a blog about it!
How do I move on?
Should I move on?
Oh! A fun fact! I didn’t write all these journal entries at their assigned date. I was WAY too uncomfortable in the hospital to write anything. However, my Mom took tons of pictures, so I just went back to the pictures to remember every thought, memory, and feeling.
It’s actually great that my blog will be in the yearbook. I really need exposure. I think the most views I got in a day so far was 8.
So yeah.
Woohoo! Yearbook!
I didn’t go to school today. Since yesterday was my biopsy day, I decided to take a day off to heal.
Usually I don’t miss school. Even after biopsies, I go to school the day after. One time I went to school the day after a biopsy, and my incision site started to bleed while I was taking a Chemistry test. I didn’t say anything about the bleeding because I really wanted to finish the Chemistry test.
Another example is last year. Last year when I was in the hospital for leg pain, I begged my doctors to let me go back to school after one month. Instead, they made me be homeschooled for two months.
The reason I hate missing school isn’t because I have a great time at school or all my friends are there, it’s because when I miss school it stresses me out. I not only have to make up homework, but also schoolwork. That’s double, sometimes triple, the amount I have to do.
So why did I choose to stay at home today?
I guess I choose to stay at home today because I just felt like it. 🤷♂️
Today someone from yearbook came to take a picture of me. They’re using it for my yearbook profile.
Today when I was walking to math, my classmate stopped me in the hallway and complimented me. He read my blog, and told me “good job” for surviving.
Thanks! 😁
Today I felt sick in Chemistry so I left school early. Before I left, I had to check in with the school nurse.
I was in between going home or staying at school, so I asked the nurse for her opinion.
I couldn’t believe how ignorant the nurse was. She told me, “It’s not a matter of whether or not you should stay at school, it’s a matter of whether or not you can make it through the school day.”
No, it’s a matter of whether I should stay at school, or not.
She knows about my heart transplant: I saw her pull my health record up on the school website. She should know that I’m more prone to infections, and that I need to be cautious while sick.
Today I had another personal training lesson.
We started off with some high legs, but then it turned into lunges and jump squats. The cardio became too much and I had to rest a lot.
Then, something dreadful happened. Someone said, “Hi.” I looked up and saw my biomedical science teacher.
Our relationship is tense after something I can’t tell you about. It was VERY awkward seeing him at the gym, especially when I’m at my weakest point.
He asked me if I was okay after seeing me out of breath. I said “Yeah,” but I really wanted to say, “I never give up,” but the point was probably mute.
My trainer taught me how to use a pull up machine that took a portion of my weight away. The more weight you add onto the machine, the easier it is for you.
He also taught me how to use some machines to help me stretch. That way I could work on my flexibility.
My core is really bad. I have almost no core strength. We focused on exercising my core today, but I couldn’t do it. Whenever I tried to do a sit up, my back just hurt instead.
My personal trainer thinks I spend too much time sitting down, so he recommended for me to stand every thirty minutes.
I was so sore after the workout. It was a good workout, but it was intense.
I’m sick.
The thing is, I’m not really worried about it that much. I’ve been sick before (June 3, 2019), and nothing really happened. Also, I’m approaching the one year mark anyways, so I’m not extremely vulnerable to infections.
I might seem very chillax compared to my other journal entries (December 6, 2018), but that’s just the way it is boo. I’m an unpredictable person, hahaha.
I decided to not go to school today, but only because today is a useless day anyways. Today at school is a block schedule, which means a full day of nothing in each class.
I also swam today, but only for twenty minutes. I was kind of debating about it, since it is an outdoor pool and I swim at nine in the evening, but whatever. Exercise number one.
Tomorrow I might go to school, but my mom doesn’t want me to risk it. I might get even more contaminated, but I have two tests.