From the Sickly Side.....

Hi, everyone, it is Maddy here. From my point of view, it was a little different.

I remember before I got sick, I loved playing soccer, going to school (and doing well), and I liked being very active on a regular basis. I remember when I started feeling sick, I felt like I didn't want to do anything. When the stomach aches started, eating made them worse so eating was its own battle. I was really disappointed when I went to Thanksgiving at a relatives' house with my family and I could barely eat and keep down some mashed potatoes. As time went on and I kept getting sicker and sicker, things get fuzzier or they don't exist that much. I remember how hard it was to get out of bed to go to school, something I hadn't had many problems with before. I remember going to school and hearing sound come out of teacher's mouths but not understanding a word they said. School assignments that used to be a breeze become too hard to do. I would try so hard to follow along, and it was beyond my ability to pay attention and learn.

To help with picturing me, I went to sleep in 1st period one day because I literally could not stay awake- and then the teacher managed to wake me up 3-4 hours later-- I had not stirred to one single bell that rang, didn't lift my head when peers were coming and going, it just went completely black for that period of time. The teacher had watched me go from being an A student to acting like a zombie in short order, so he wasn't freaking out when I fell asleep in his class. Granted, I don't think that this nap kept me in school for the whole day- I think I still ended up calling my Mom to come pick me up.

I remember going to the doctor many times- for the stomach aches he told me to take antacids but they didn't help at all. I remember the pure relief when right before Christmas vacation we got the test results back and the word that I had mono-- because then he wouldn't be telling me that I was making everything up.