Monday, December 28, 2009

Reader's Digest Version of...Well This Stage in My LIfe

Hello!  I am Stephanie Collier.  I am a 19 year-old college student who still lives at home.  But hey, I'm an only child so staying home gives me just more opportunities to reap the benefits of a spoiled life! :-)  Besides, I'm too family oriented to leave home so soon.  I mean, I live right next door to my 95 year old great-grandmother (who by the way still cuts her own grass), while my grandmother lives not even half a mile from my house in the country. We have four generations of women in one central location, say an extra prayer for my dad!
My dream is and always has been to become a teacher.  My first students ranged from my baby dolls to even my cat!  I have been blessed with a job at the Extended Day program at my old high school where I am privy to first hand teaching experience.  God has blessed me with these children to help give me a purpose each and every day.
March 21, 2007 is a day that will forever stick out in my mind.  It marks the first day of my most peculiar illness.  It was my junior year of high school, I was just 17.  I was lead-off batter of the varsity softball team, and after practice I felt extremely nauseated.  You have to understand that I am rarely if ever sick, I mean my great-grandmother rides her lawnmower in heat of the Southern Summer, good health kinda just runs in the family.  So I passed it off as a virus, some 24 hour bug that would pass.  To make a long story short, the nausea never passed.  It's here even now as I am typing this.  I feel nauseated all day, every day, 24-7, 365 days a year.  In fact my health took another turn for the worse March of this year when I started throwing up everyday on top of everything else. (March..makes me think of St. Patrick's Day...I'm of Irish descent..Huh..so much for the luck of the Irish.) My very worried family has taken me to doctor after doctor, and even to the Mayo Clinic, but we have ended up back at square one.  We have no answers, we have no cure, we don't even have a medication to help manage the symptoms.
I have written this blog more-or-less for my sake.  It's a way for my to cope. I have always enjoyed writing and I'm hoping that physically typing out my story will help me kinda vent.  If anyone were to read this, I would appreciate any questions, comments, or advice that you may offer.  Thank you and God bless!