On China and POTS and struggles

This is gonna be rambley. Sorry. This post was originally named "How POTS got me to China the first time and almost made me leave early the second time." but that title sucks. The current title also sucks but whatevs. I don't know why I'm including the parts about Costco and Beijing. That's a completely different story than the story that is the point. I've always been the person that has to write a bit of word puke before I get my thoughts organized about the part that actually matters. I definitely did that with this post. Academically, including Costco and Beijing is lowering the power of my argument and story. This isn't academic. This isn't going viral. Very few people will read this. So I leave that part for me. Because I didn't remember it until recently and I don't want to forget it again. I'm terrible at journaling and I'm terrible at blogging. But for once I wrote a memory. So here it stays.

October 2016, I had just turned 18 and I was miserably sick with no relief in sight.

I had asked my mom months earlier if we could go skydiving for my 18^th birthday. She said she’d think about it. Later, when I was missing school every other minute, she half-jokingly said that I would hurry up and get healthy before my birthday, then we would go skydiving. I didn’t get better and I didn’t even really have the energy or the want to go anymore. So, we skipped the skydiving and my mom kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday instead. I didn’t have any ideas.

A few weeks later, we were in Costco and I asked my mom for a huge box of Reese’s cups for my birthday. She asked me how we got from skydiving to candy. I told her that I didn’t really want chocolate, I wanted to be healthy, I wanted to skydive, I wanted to travel the world and.. and.. and.. (I was grasping at straws trying to come up with something that sounded exciting off the top of my head) Heely on the great wall of China! But my body was broken and I wasn’t going to get any of those things, so I wanted some chocolate and I wanted some Omeprazole. She bought me the chocolate.

I don’t really remember that conversation. I very vaguely remember saying something about China at some point during that part of my life, I remember asking for chocolate and sweet talking her into buying it, but I didn’t remember them happening together. My mom brought this conversation up the other day as the moment she started thinking and planning for our trip to Beijing. She started googling air fare that night and later found a KILLER deal.  I had no idea.

We went to Beijing together and I did Heely on the great wall and it was incredible. I freaked out. It felt like a dream. I couldn’t believe the thing I had joked about was actually happening. Weirdly enough, being sick is part of what got me there.

Long story short, I went back to China as an exchange student a few months later (Click here for the long story.) If you follow me on Instagram you probably saw my pictures and saw the “picture perfect” story front that I put up.

The part of the story that you might’ve caught a small glimpse of if you happened to see my mom’s Facebook post, is that I got sick almost as soon as I got there, and I wanted to come home.

I was a lot healthier in July than I was in October. I had been diagnosed about 6 months earlier and knowing the name of and how to treat my disease had completely turned my life around. I went on Trek and I went to Girl’s camp and I was feeling like a normal person. It was wonderful.

 In a lot of ways, I didn’t want to go to Shanghai because it felt like I would go to China and come home and go straight to college and I didn’t want to go to college because I didn’t want to leave my family. So I didn’t want to go to China, I wanted to stay home and be with my family before I had to leave for college.

But oh wait I actually totally did want to go to China. I was so excited to go and do amazing things and meet amazing people. Really, the timing and my anxiety about college were the issues. (PLOT TWIST: my anxiety is caused by POTS.

I got to Shanghai, and I was hit by jetlag. Hard. I have traveled a lot, but I’ve never had very much jetlag. I had jetlag and I couldn’t sleep hardly at all. To make it worse, the bed I was sleeping on was awful. It hurt to lay down. No sleep was making me emotional. Being emotional was putting my already higher than a normal person adrenaline levels through the roof. The adrenaline made it even harder to sleep, sent my stomach into a painful mess and made me soooooooooooo anxious. I contemplated coming home 20392 times in that first week. I loved my host family and I wanted to be in China, but I wanted to sleep and I desperately wanted my mom. I felt so alone in a city of 24 million people and I didn’t know how to explain to my host family that I had a disease that was making me ridiculously sick, even though I looked absolutely fine.

I hated the way I felt. I was scared. I was tired. I was panicking about the future. I was supposed to go to college and then leave on a mission. There is absolutely no way that I could ever serve a mission in the state that I was in when I got to Shanghai. That hurt. I have wanted to serve a mission for yeeeaaarrrrssss.  

I worked out the bed situation. I was scared to ask my host family because I didn’t want to offend them, but they let me take the funky topper off of the bed and just sleep on the mattress and ohh my goodness. It felt so good to sleep on a normal bed. My mom called my doctor for me to talk POTS and he told me to double up on some of my medications. Doing those things made a HUGE difference.

The anxiety lingered. It got better when I started doubling my medications and especially better after I got over the jet lag. But it lingered. I’d like to say it was all better after those first few days, it wasn’t. It was 30498203948x better, but I wasn’t all better. I continued to have some panicky moments throughout the whole stay. I was fine when I was out and about with my host family, but there were a lot of nights that I broke down when I talked on the phone with my mom.

I would like to say I would do it again in a heartbeat. And in a lot of ways I would. I loved my host family and I can’t wait for the day I get to see them again, and I saw so many incredible things. I really learned a lot about myself and I got so much closer to my Heavenly Father. The struggles were part of what made it worth it. But it was hard.

The anxiety lingered even after I got home. I had just seen my doctor right before I left for China and I wasn’t due to see him again for months. But I needed something to be different. I told my mom there was no way I could go to college with my anxiety the way it was. So, I saw the doctor again and he and I decided together, to up my adrenaline medication. It was definitely the right decision. That wasn’t smooth off the bat either. I really struggled to move to college. I knew Weber was and is the right place for me to be right now, but I had so many awful feelings. It took some time. But I really am happy to be here. I really am doing well.

Struggling in China was a blessing in so many ways. I got my medication fixed before I left for college and I learned a few things about my health and how to take care of myself when things get out of whack. If I had been arriving at the MTC and having those issues, I would’ve HAD to come home. The 3 weeks I was in Shanghai felt like an eternityyyy. The thought of staying those 3 weeks felt too hard. Too scary. I didn’t want to not sleep for 3 weeks. Now swapping 3 weeks for 18 months and I wouldn’t’ve even tried to stay. But I made the 3 weeks and I will be much better prepared for a mission because of it. I have learned the tricks to help my body adjust to travel. I have learned the tricks to help snap my health back into MY control when it starts spiraling out of control.

The church recently updated the missionary questions, specifically in regard to mental health. And for good reason. No one should have to feel like that ever, but especially not far away from everything you’ve ever known. I wouldn’t wish those awful feelings on anyone, but especially not on a missionary. Take the time to get better before you go. I promise it will be worth it. 

 If you are struggling, physically, emotionally, mentally, go find help. It might take some time to figure out the right treatment. But don’t stop trying. You don’t deserve to feel that pain and that fear. You can still be yourself, be a student, be a missionary, be a parent, be successful, be whatever you want to be even if you have trials, even if you have an illness. I promise you that you will be a better student, a better missionary, parent, employee, friend if you love yourself enough to get the help you need and deserve.