Downturn

About a week after I got out of the hospital, I started to get worse. My parents left for vacation, and Mikey was in charge of making me drink my godawful Ensures. Have you ever had one of those things?? They're designed to cram the maximum amount of nutrition and fat in one small "chocolate" drink. I couldn't eat real food, so the doctor told me I had to have at least 5 Ensures per day. I just got worse and worse. I couldn't walk, couldn't get out of bed, couldn't even get 3 Ensures down. So...the doctor put me back in the hospital.

Mikey wins the brother of year award. He's the one who took me to the hospital and took care of me until Mom and Dad could get back in town.

I started to get a little scared at this point. I was so, so sick and in so much pain. Plus, I was having these convulsions and no one could figure it out. Everyone at the Hilton Head hospital was very nice (if Emory was an Econolodge, the Hilton Head hospital was the Ritz-Carlton). I had every test known to man - if you watch House, that was pretty much my week. Finally, the doctors found a cyst in my brain (which they promptly dismissed) and a bacterial infection in my blood. After a couple of days of hardcore IV antibiotics, they released me.

Yep, returning to school wasn't looking too good.