Defining Moments

How many defining moments do you have in your life? I believe I have more than one. So for the next few days I am going to share them with you. Day by day. I am going to start with the moment that started when I was young, and work my way up. So...

Moment 1: (or 21 days..keep reading)
When I was 7 months old, I was really sick. At first, it was an ear infection. No biggie right? A lot of babies get ear infections...well WRONG. It was indeed NOT an ear infection. After running a high fever and crying my eyes out (as my mom says...because let's face it I don't remember this but it's important) my mom rushed me to the ER. Not much later, the Dr came and told my mom the problem.
I had spinal meningitis. At 7 months old, I had just started getting hair. The last time my mom saw me, I had hair. The next time she saw me I was in an incubator with a shaved head that had IV's coming out of it. Fast forward about two weeks. I had been in the hospital all this time, and my mom was unable to hold me, or even touch me. They finally let her rock me in the rocking chair in my nursery away from my nursery. As she rocked me, I started to scream, she looked down and blood was everywhere. She had accidentally pulled the IV out of my head. It turned out to be okay, I was fine (well not fine but you know). They had told my mom that meningitis can cause many many health problems, and that most babies didn't survive it. It could cause blindness. It could cause one to go deaf. But I made it through all of these. I lived.
I went home from the hospital and all was fine. Of course I was a sickly child because the antibiotics they had to give me destroyed what little immune system I had. But I lived.
I know it's hard to think about a defining moment (or 21 days) that you don't even remember. But when I hear my mom tell this story it gives me goosebumps. And it helped me realize something when I thought about writing this post. I came out fighting.
From the beginning my life was and is a challenging battle. But it is a battle that I refuse to give up on. One day when the war is over and my battles have been lost, at least I will know I went out fighting too.