My First Heartbreak

I experienced my first heartbreak at the young age of fourteen. I know what you're thinking, fourteen is too young to know what a heartbreak really is. This heartbreak was not the typical my boyfriend broke up with me, or someone died type of heartbreak. I was fourteen and mourning the loss of life as I knew it. Fourteen should be the age of adapting to high school and obsessing over cute boys with your girlfriends, not the age of sorrow and relearning how to live your life. 

I don't remember waking up in the hospital and being told I was now a quadriplegic. It was just something I already knew. Whether or not I just don't remember someone saying those words to me could be the case (morphine is one hell of a drug). I have yet to go through anything as devastating as being told not only will I never walk again, but I will never move about 85% of my body again, or breathe without a ventilator. Oh yeah! Another zinger, I will now pee through a tube and have a set bowel routine. I can't even feed myself and now I have to worry about possibly pissing myself. Oh joy! As if things couldn't get any worse...but wait! There's more! Once I returned home, three months later, all my friends stopped coming around. So not only was I embarrassed of myself my friends were too. 

I cried, but not as much as I should have. You see, the thing with being 100% dependent on others to live means holding a lot in because you don't want to bring down their day. Most of my tears were, and still are, shed when I am finally alone and going to sleep. Yes, eleven years later I still have moments where I break down. I don't think you ever really get over losing everything you once knew. You just learn to live with it and become a new (hopefully improved) you. 

I like to think that I have adapted well, but I still feel sorry for my fourteen year old self sometimes. I am really good at being strong for everyone else, but myself. There are now more good days than bad. Eleven years later and I am no longer on a ventilator. I have more independence, but not much. This heartbreak is not easy and never will be, but I slowly add more band-aids to it. I would never wish this on anybody because very few have enough band-aids to push through it, and still shine bright.