“Julia… Julia… JULIA!!!” I quickly jolted awake as I heard my step-dad, Dave, bellow out my name with a sense of panic. As I opened my eyes, I found myself sitting on my mom’s lap, while she and Dave were looking at me with fear in their eyes, and the phone in hand. Earlier in the night I had tossed and turned in my bed, but nothing was ceasing my intense stomach pain. Once I decided to crawl into bed with my mom, I instantly fell asleep. I was so shocked to be awakened by loud screaming, and I was beyond confused when I noticed the concerned looks on both of their faces. “Why did you guys wake me up?” I asked them as they continued to ponder what they were going to do next. With a shaky voice my mom managed to reply, “your eyes were rolled to the back of your head, your tongue was sticking out of …show more content…
My excitement to no longer stay in the hospitals with IVs and spinal taps was uncontainable, but at the same time, I didn’t know what being away from my doctors felt like. Although my stomach felt a lot better, and the seizures never returned, I still had many personal struggles. Going to bed was a very difficult process for me at that time. Since I was so young, I had many irrational thoughts. I could not go to sleep without having negative thoughts about my health. I was deathly afraid of having a seizure without my mom around to snap me out of it. “Would I wake up from it on my own?” “How long would it last?” “Would I end up dying?” These are thoughts that engulfed my brain every single night. It took me months to finally be able to fall asleep peacefully on my own, without any thoughts of becoming sick again. I was also extremely weak, for I lost eleven pounds while in the hospital. I was always skinny for my age and height, and so losing eleven pounds made a huge difference. On top of all of this, my first day at a new school was quickly approaching, and so I was naturally very nervous