You fainting weirdos!
I am a dork. I admit it, I am not ashamed. I love to read and I love history. I was reading a book about first ladies in the White House and came across a story that I had heard a few times before. President William McKinley’s wife Ida suffered from epilepsy, and when she would have a seizure, he would put his handkerchief over her face and hold it there until she was done. Its funny just imagining him holding the cloth over her face and carrying on a conversation like nothing was happening. Now, maybe its just me, but I would think that making me look like a ghost by draping cloths over me would be more embarrassing than just having a seizure in front of people. But that was how it was back then, epilepsy/seizures were something you hid from the public. Good Lord, I would have been hidden away for most of my life! And what would the world have been like then? Quieter I’m sure.
I think that is the one thing I know I tend to struggle with when it comes to my heart disorder, and I know a few of my friends who have dysautonomia feel the same way. Its embarrassing when you are out in public and start feeling sick because these people are seeing you at your absolute worst. When I moved to Florida for 6th and 7th grade, it sucked because I had to make new friends and cope with being sick as well. I was sitting in my math class (I think this was 7th grade) and I started to feel sick. The bell rang and I hurried out of the classroom to try and make it to the bathroom because I felt like I was going to throw up. I started running, and actually punched some kid in the stomach who was in my way. Of course, there was a huge line in the bathroom. I remember leaning against the wall because I knew something was going to happen…next thing I know, I wake up on the bathroom floor. So, after that incident, I was pretty much the new girl in school who was a fainting freak. I didn’t go to a lot of school in Florida though, with being sick and the pacemaker surgery, so I got over that incident real quick.
But how embarrassing is it when you get sick in school, have the ambulance called, get wheeled through the lunch room filled with about 100+ students who pretty much know who it is on the stretcher. That right there was a big part of my high school career. It was different than it was when I was in Florida though because at Monroe High, I had known these people for a long time, and they knew me. They knew that I wasn’t just a chick with a heart problem/pacemaker, I was Jessica. The fun loving girl who loves to laugh and have fun, their friend. Its always wise to set your yourself apart from the “sick” part of you. Otherwise, it can get the best of you and become you.