A Falling Star

Trigger warning: this post contains somewhat graphic descriptions of having a miscarriage, pregnancy, depression, and everything else you can imagine that goes along with loss and medical trauma.

A shooting star is technically a falling star; my dream of dance and ballet that I have tried relentlessly to pursue I feel falling further away from me and all I can do is watch, wishing on the shooting star to rise again.

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I performed in the Nutcracker during December and immediately the next day I took myself to urgent care because something felt wrong. I found out I was pregnant and I was in complete shock. I was nervous and scared and all the other feelings that come with this sort of news. However, the following day I still felt as if something was wrong. I then found out I was having have an ectopic pregnancy and immediately went to the Emergency room and this began the longest months of my life, of mostly crying and fearing for my life.

(I plan to write in more detail about my pregnancy thoughts later, so stayed tune)

I finally for the first time feel a little bit at ease since going through an ectopic pregnancy. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my entire life and I was faced with my own mortality, including the fate of my own baby. I experienced the hardest and most grueling pain I have ever felt and was forcefully hammered down into the single most fragile mote of a spirit. I cried nearly everyday and spent most of the time in an epsom salt bath hoping to escape the pain momentarily while also praying to not pass out while in the tub and feeling like a scared child.

awaiting to hear the news

During this time, I spent so much time taking an Uber to or from a hospital, Emergency Room, treatment center, or blood draw center I cannot tell you where I was at what time and why. When I was diagnosed with an ectopic, I had a chemo infusion in the emergency room next to a lady screaming for her life; wailing in pain due to a fall and screaming for painkillers at the top of her lungs while going through an obvious withdrawal and next to another guy who was older and quiet. Her screaming at the top of her lungs provided quite the distraction for myself as the obvious new and nervous nurse painfully injected the medication into my glutes and I felt tears sliding down my cheeks, unsure who I was crying for anymore. I watched my blood pressure finally drop after thirty minutes and slinked away in a haze with my boyfriend as we looked at each other, both scared.

I bled all over my apartment for over a month, also in ways I didn’t know one could bleed. I stepped on a large blood clot that took me over ten minutes to realize came out of me. I grew briefly unhinged as I tried not to freak all the way out but realized I knew NOTHING about my body at all, at that moment. Was that the fetus or just blood? I couldn’t know and would never know. I had many and much larger clots in the weeks that followed.

I tried to not have negative thoughts as I looked at my ghastly pale reflection in the mirror but I couldn’t help it. I looked unrecognizable. I drank gallons of water and gallons of tylenol and popsicles.

The second infusion I had at the cancer center, staring into the faces of people of all ages suffering through chemotherapy as I struggled to remain calm, cool and collected. I thought perhaps my second infusion would be less painful (which the injection was) but the new RN in training couldn’t draw my blood as I watched her nervous hands tremble, causing me to grow nervous, as she stuck me over and over again.

The aftermath of the second injection wasn’t felt at first, but two hours later I was wailing in pain as I clenched down on my stomach as it cramped and pulsated in a way that I only thought was possible if you were giving birth. I trembled and chugged even more Tylenol but nothing worked. I spent the next few days in the Emergency Room and in the inpatient unit at the hospital. After two days, I was finally dicharged when the pain subsided.

I couldn’t imagine feeling normal again. I couldn’t imagine feeling pain-free. I was unable to do anything. Eat food. Sleep. Laugh. Walk. I was bed bound for over two months even though that would normally drive me crazy. I had no energy. I was delirious at times. I couldn’t read books, I couldn’t even think. I spent most of my time mindlessly watching Netflix shows and dreaming of eating food and praying I would live. I missed daily stuff I took for granted. Work. Eating. Cleaning. Laughing. Exercising. Taking a shower. Walking. Going to the grocery store. Painting my nails. Wearing makeup. Easily bending down to tie my shoes. Using the restroom in a normal manner. My cats tried to comfort me but I felt alone at times because nothing makes you feel more alone than when you’re alone with your own thoughts and worries not sure of what is happening and if you’ll ever feel the same when all is said and done.

If anyone posted anything they were doing online, and it looked like they were having fun, I was immediately singeing with jealousy. How could everyone just have normal lives right now when mine was upside down? I hated them.

A handful of people sent me heartfelt messages, letters and packages which brought me to cry, yet again.

I had a lot of thoughts. Like if I had anything worse going on, or God forbid, I would die, would also NO ONE really care. Why? Did I do something wrong? Have I not been a nice enough person? Haven’t I always been there for others? Would I just be a social media smudge on the world and no one would really KNOW who I was? Am I just a conglomerate of my instagram stories and posts with my witty captions (which no one REALLY looks at). And that’s the only snapshot people have of me? Would they ever know all the layers of me? The things I’ve seen in this world; like the crazy ginormous yellow tropical jungle spiders that have nests in crazy geometric shapes that I didn’t even lnow could exist — and that I almost ran into on jungle hikes — as I finally felt that I was living my Motorcycle Cycle Diaries/ Indiana Jones life that I always had DREAMED of but NEVER thought would happen? That I made it out of a one-horse town with no money to my name and made it on journeys to see the world.

About the time a monkey jumped into my kayak while in Nicaragua, sat in my lap with his heavy bean bag tail and tried to steal my switch blade that I had clipped to my waist. I ripped it out of it’s hand before it could press the button or run away with it and the monkey got pissed as I shooed it off my kayak before it could attack me. I watched in bewilderment as an aloof couple in a kayak went over to try to pet it, and it snatched the sunglasses off their face, ripped them in half with its bare hands and then bit them because it was upset with me.

my guide on my money-kayaking bonanza

Would people know my love of the impoverished, homeless and forgotten people of the world? That I think helping others is why we are really here on the planet and how I would often whimsically dream of winning a million dollars and secretly giving it away my whole life to anyone who needed it.

How I love to go to coffee shops around the world, to read books and write in my journal and people watch. How I valued my alone time and could live off of coffee instead of food and how many amazing conversations, laughs and tears I have had with friends in coffee shops.

How much I love ballet but always feel as if I’m never getting better but somehow hope I am, even just a little bit. How I have so many leotards and tights but only ever wear the same one or two because of how body conscious I am. How my favorite leotard came from the Kansas City Ballet given to me by my teacher Skyler Taylor (maiden name) from the company costume room and that I used to wear it under my work uniforms at my shitty serving jobs to remind myself of my dreams. That it really didn’t fit that well and was ripping, tearing and had holes and I still only wore that leotard most of the time?

How much I love to watch the rain outside of my window in the morning and the old moss on the trees, in a dreamy state. The crow with the broken beak (Oscar) and my cats watching the birds in the window, one with satisfaction the other with the wild urge to hunt. The nail salon and wine tasting room across the street. The “moon room” next to them.

Would my life stories (also just a MERE part of me) just sit on my blog, unread? And eventually would be disabled from lack of payment to my blog. And then gone forever and left in its place a broken link.

And most importantly, do people even care?