A year ago today

I surfaced at work after being gone for over a week because I couldn’t move. I’d been getting sicker and sicker for months and I couldn’t keep up anymore.

I went back to school to start Spring term, and right before class got a call from my doctor’s office telling me I needed to go to the ER because my hemoglobin was 54.

Today marks a year since my first blood transfusion of 2013—three units from amazing donors that kept me alive, to be followed by another seven in the next four months.

it’s been a bombs and guns and fire kind of season
oh, i need a reason for all of my bleeding tonight.
i’m going to break it out, i’m going to make a scene if i’m right

Day before I got sent to the ER. Note that there’s basically no colour in my face/lips. [I felt like I had energy, but in reality my body probably had just adjusted to being super depleted of hemoglobin that I was able to sit up again.]

A year ago yesterday.

World Asthma Day 2013 [May 7th] 365 days ago today.

About 36 hours later, after three units of blood and a bunch of saline.

(And the friggen Lasix. I still don’t understand this combination of saline and Lasix.)

Yesterday.

let the revival rattle me
and open my eyes
it’s so good.
revival, the rocket summer

And today—365 days later.

World Asthma Day 2014. Wearing the same t-shirt I got my mom to bring to the hospital before heading to work early in the morning.

Donald, Mike, Sam and I gave out over a hundred Asthma Society of Canada resources for World Asthma Day.

…Then went to Wal-Mart with the intention of playing Marco Polo. Because that’s badass, right?

I thought about where I was this time last year today—purposefully at some times, fleetingly at others.

Thankful that it won’t be every year that these two days are the same day so I can reflect on each for its own reason. Thankful for the people who choose to spend their time with me—the people who stick by me.

Simply: thankful I’m still alive.