The Drummer Who Could

Well.
As you might not have known (yes I have been ignoring this blog... sorry T_T)
I recently went through summer gym. Or tried to. The people there didn't seem to understand or CARE that I had been pretty much bed ridden for the past year, and needed to work myself up to normal exercise. They pushed me pass my limit multiple times, wouldn't let me stop when I was about to pass out, and didn't listen to me. This would have helped build endurance on a normal person... but unfortunately I'm NOT normal. I was pushed into a week long migraine session because of this. Then I had a reaction to my medicine.

It's called Serotonin Syndrome, and was actually insanely serious. Not funny at all. Whenever I stood up I was passing out, my blood pressure was so low that it couldn't pump at a vertical degree. I was also losing my vision, or my vision was either going red or blue when I stood or sat up. My muscles were twitching and I could not relax. I was falling asleep every hour or so, I could only stay awake for a good 15 minutes before feeling exhausted.

That was when the doctors saw me on an emergency visit, and decided to pull me off the medicine completely. No tapering off it. Completely all at once pull me off the thing. What my doctor HADN'T told me before he had put me on the medicine before, was that it was also an anti-depressant. So when he pulled me off it, I was on suicide watch. Joy. That's probably a good thing, because honestly... I was pretty screwed up. Literally, one sentence I would be happy and the next sentence I would want to punch someone in the head. It took a full month for that medicine to be out of my system, and I had some other major issues with that medicine which required M.R.I's (but those issues are personal, and would freak you people out or would get you concerned for my life or something).

Anyways, I missed all of summer gym. Ended up getting credit for it anyways because I was medically excused, don't ask me how that works, I'm not sure either.

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Back to the title of this post *points up*
Drumline started 2 Wednesday's ago. August 6th that is. That week it was from 8 to 12, not that bad. I had a migraine on Friday and ended up missing then. Things weren't looking too good because starting Monday the times would become 8 to 3.

I'm proud to say I've made it the entire week.
Carried the drum the entire fcking time.
I'm one base one this year, I'm proud of that also. Sure it's the lightest drum this time, but hey, the base drums are still one of the most awkward to carry, you can't shift the weight off your shoulders. It should be on your abs but with our old harness's that's not where it goes, even if you stand right.
I don't have to put the drum down anymore, I don't take breaks >_> I AM THE ONE SETTING THE EXAMPLE. owned. *dance*
I get tension headaches from the weight, but my chiropractor showed me where my tension point is in my hand to take the headache away, and dude... it works.
I'm practicing everyday now. I'm not slacking like last year.
The base line seems to have some trouble reading music, and I can usually tell them what the rhythm is. I'm proud of that also, reading music was never my strong point, that's why I quit piano and cello.
I dragged myself out of bed the days I wasn't feeling my best, and that's saying something.

I'm off that horrid medicine, I'm on something new, and it seems to be working so far. I won't be up to an actual prescription dose until november or so. They're taking it slow because of my issues to the last medicine... but this is the ONLY good news since this shit started happening a few years ago. Hell, I've had chronic migraines since I was born. This medicine could get RID of those. Lets not get my hopes up though. I have a schedule for school that lets me go in later, and drumline has proved that I can DO that. Things are definitely looking up.

I've proved to myself, I have a life to live.
I can actually live it, NOTHING is going to keep me from doing that.