Book Two: Back in Canada

With the ending of one chapter in your life another begins...

A lot has taken place since I last wrote. I arrived yesterday morning at the Halifax airport into the arms of someone I can now say I love. My flight left the airport in Accra Thursday morning at 9:40. My emotions were high, I felt anxious, sad, happy, sick, and tired. I went to bed knowing that I was going to have a stressful morning but waiting at a foreign airport with no passport in hand and your flight is due to leave in thirty minutes how could you prepare yourself.

The last two weeks were two of the toughest weeks of my life as you read in my last post. I had a very difficult time dealing with all that was happening. The fact that my health was not well did not make the situation easier. My temperature was high, I was experiencing the worst migraines I'd ever had, ears were aching, stomach was a mess and I was vomiting... but not out my mouth(sorry but you learn quickly that poop talk is part of life sometimes). This caused me to worry extremely.
I guess this is a good time, for those of you who don't know before I left for Ghana I was told by the doctors that it was a terrible idea and I shouldn't do it. I had been sick on and off for four months but it wasn't until two months before they realized what was wrong. I was experiencing trouble with my kidney. One day in February I went home from volleyball to pee pure blood. I had no idea what to think and was terrified so honestly I continued to hop in the shower until I got a clear mind to tell myself to go to the hospital. When I went to the hospital they asked the typical questions and took a urine test. They told me it was just a bladder infection and sent me home. Well it wasn't until a week later when I was feeling terrible that I went to the student health clinic to find out the emergency room had sent the school a letter saying, "Contact this girl immediately!"(which might I say, they didn't). The doctors ran some test and still had no idea what was going on. She sat me down and listed off every terrible health condition you don't ever want to hear your doctor say you might have and said we're going to have to run further tests to see what it is and sent me off to volleyball practice. Well let's just say the next two months were very stressful. I had blood and urine tests done weekly as well as some x-rays and a ultra sound.
All this is happening and you realize, oh yeah, life you're still happening.
I was accepted into Intercordia in January before all this bad news started coming. The Intercordia class was my escape. I came, got to be with people who had the same passion for life and others life that I held and it was amazing. Each class I went to was like a free appointment with world's best mental coach. When I'd leave the class my favourite little lady and I would talk about how relaxing the class was(We promise this is not solely because of the comforting sound of our professor's voice. Him reading a loud the dictionary could send anyone into a state of mental relaxation). It really became my escape. This escape feeling only got better the day I found out my placement, I was going to a place where I had always seen myself in my dreams, it was happening.
It was three weeks before I was leaving that I had to allow my escape and reality collide, I had to inform my doctor that in three weeks I was leaving for Ghana. When I told her her face dropped, it honestly makes me laugh when I think about it. "So since I can't take Advil, Pepto, I have to eliminate red meat and cut back something serious on all other proteins and all these other things but do you think me Malaria pills are okay?" The look on her face, oh man, I shouldn't laugh but. Immediately she knew I was taken off somewhere. She started quizzing me on where I was going and definitely did not like it when I replied, "Ghana". She looked right at me and asked if this could wait until next year and I said preferably not. I didn't say this out of spite to get a thrill but I said this because she had just informed me that I would need to see a kidney specialist and it was going to take 3-4 months to get an appointment anyways.
And it wasn't until a week before my leaving day that I one hundred percent decided that I was going. I decided that I wasn't going to sit around and be sick at home for 3 or 4 months till I could find out that there is either something serious wrong with me or it's very minor and will heal on it's own with my changes I'm making and attention on it. I did not want to be the "sick" person, I didn't want to tell anyone I was "sick", they don't even know if I'm sick so why put myself through 3 or 4 months of "why aren't you working your two jobs rather than just one, why aren't playing beach this year, why aren't you coming out tonight" all the questions I would be asked(with the exception of "why aren't you eating meat anymore?" which definitely came up on more than one occasion in Ghana). Until I know something is seriously wrong I am not going to be the sick person.
With this your now up to speed on today, why I am back in Canada. The doctor told me if anything were to happen and I was to even get the smallest thing as a sore throat that I needed to see the doctor to ensure it was nothing that could grow into something serious thus having some affect on my kidney and what not. So when I feel sick last week, I knew, I knew I was coming home. I had be very lucky, I had made it two full months without even a cough, sneeze, nothing and now it was hitting me all at once like a brick wall. I was sick and had to go to the hospital. At the hospital I had blood tests done, which they checked me for malaria and said it did not show up in my blood but I had all the symptoms of it and they would be treating me for it anyways. Immediately I knew. I called Mom in tears when I got home, I knew I would have to come home. I thought well I should stay, it's only a month if there's something wrong it can't get that bad in a month could it? It took me a week to decide continue being sick for the next month and actually be the sick person I was avoiding being in Canada or go home and get shit straightened out. It wasn't until I spoke with my Nanners that I knew what I had to do. See me and Nanners have this thing, people think were crazy but when you know somethings there, an intuition, between two people you know. I hadn't spoken to her much since I had come away but my phone rang while I was laying in bed crying, talking to God, trying to figure out what to do, it was Nanners. We spoke just a quick and short conversation but in the end I was relaxed and felt okay about changing my ticket.
And that is why I arrived back in Canada. I have an appointment with that doctor to make sure things are okay, which they will be(got to be positive). I am happy to be home. I will never regret my choice in leaving and feel like this experience has made me grow so much as a person. This is just the ending of a chapter in my life and the beginning of another, Book Two I'm calling it, Back in Canada.
I am really thankful to everyone who has followed my blog this far and am happy to say that I had so many more stories that I hope you will still come here and read. Just because I'm back in Canada does not mean the experience is over. An experience as such is everlasting in one's life and this I will be a signatory for.