Hey Carrie Ann: July 2008

So I want a piece of my writing on here somehow, and I'll figure out how to use the fancy link deallys when I get home so it doesn't take up my whole page, but here's the first paper I wrote for my CC English class my senior year.

Taming Thumper

I was a naïve fourth grader playing a game that consisted of throwing a ball on the roof of my home and racing my twin to its return. In the cool air of fall, this sport went on for maybe an hour before I grew too weary to continue. I laid myself out on the front porch of my house, ball between my hands on top of my chest with my twin by my side. We soon noticed the yellow, foam ball our mother had just given us, was forcefully rising and falling with the beating of the heart beneath. As it would have occurred with any other pair of nine year olds, we found that phenomenon oddly amusing, but thought nothing of it shortly afterwards. Time merely went on and the memory faded as we progressed through school.

It wasn't until the fall of eighth grade, a full four years later, when the recollection resurfaced. I was in gym class, and it was the dreaded day of the week to run the mile. I had never been fond of the activity, and felt an extreme desire to find a way out of it that perticular week. In the midst of my hesitation to fake an illness, the ninth grade T.A. of my class period came running to join me. I attempted to convince him of the legitimate sickness I hadn't enough time to create, though I knew too well that he wouldn't fall for my horribly fabricated lies. I happened to be a little infatuated with this boy, so it came as no surprise to me when I faced the starting line after his brief moment of mockery. The coach sounded his whistle, and we were off. I ran. With an unsteady tempo, I pushed on awaiting the vision of the finish line. Halfway through the mile, I was finding it difficult to continue, but I knew my crush was watching with eyes ready to flout if given the chance.

My detested race was almost over. I was seven-eighths of the way through the mile and the end was too near to not hurry my already awkward pace. I suddenly stopped, unable to breathe. My legs collapsed below me as my peers ran past either side. My mind vividly evoked the memory of that day in fourth grade as I held still in effort to calm the spellbound beast inside. It didn't take long to reclaim lucidity, but enough energy had been taken to send me home with a worried mother.

The event that day landed me a seat at the local insta-care to assure my mother that I was alright. No permanent damage was done, and the cause lingered unknown.

Soon after the affair, we made an appointment to meet with a cardiologist. His name was David Bradley. As we sat in his office at Primary Children's discussing my symptoms, it became very clear to him what I was explaining. He told my mother and me that my heart had been constrained by a condition known as Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT for short). SVT is a rapid rhythmof the heart that originates in the upper chambers. He went on to explain that when I could feel the electrical impulses of my heart convert into an abnormal rhythm, I was having an arrhythmia. Sitting there in front of the content cardiologist, my mother and I were frightened by the new information. Dr. Bradley made sure we knew that the condition was not serious and that millions of people possessed it. I was fortunate enough to have the condition located in the upper chambers, where if it were in the lower, it would have posed a threat to my life. I was not a freak, and I would live a generally normal, healthy life with few restrictions.

I entered my junior high with pride the next fall, finally being at the top of the food chain again. A familiar pattern started to form all too soon. While in my reviled gym class one day, I suffered another experience of confusion as my heart attempted to challenge the steadiness of my breathing. This time, however, was a bit more severe. As a friend ran to call 911, the same coach as the year prior carried me to a more comfortable floor to lie on. I'm unsure of the amount of time that passed or of the thoughts that possessed my peers as the paramedics circled around me. No major medical actions were necessary once the paramedics helped me control my frightened panting.

The worsening condition led me back to the welcoming office of Dr. Bradley's and we conversed about possible solutions. There was a variety to choose from, but the two that stood out were medication and a surgical procedure. My parents voted medication, and I voted procedure. Naturally, my parents' choice held and I began the medication shortly after.

Softball was a sport I'd participated in for seven years up till my sophomore year in high school. It was in the inevitable season of cooling air and decaying leaves as I headed to one of my games on the evening of October 18^th, 2005. (This meticulous season somehow prevails to be my preference above any other. In the cool bite of 65-70 degree temperatures, I feel capable of anything.) I walked onto the diamond approving every blade of grass I passed. The game started, and I knew it was going to be one to remember.

My turn to hit came, and I took advantage of every it's every second. My fresh sense of assurance sent the ball straight to the center fielder. I was stuck on first. My succeeding teammate hit and I was on my way, but while I rounded third base, my fellow teammate became our third out. I ran to the dugout, hopes still strong. I switched gear and ran for my right fielding position, but my heart was running faster. I ran right back to the dugout in dissatisfaction. Sitting down in obedience, a friend and EMT began to check my vitals. I could feel the raging battle within my chest grow between an eager heart and disapproving medicine. I felt fine, rooting on my team, though my pulse raced over one hundred and fifty.

In an abrupt moment, everything changed. I could no longer hear the cheers from the field before me or from the crowd behind me. I could no longer bear my own weight. My body collided with the bench in the dugout while my soaring heart beat dissolved everything around me. This remarkable episode left me without the ability to hyperventilate. Gasping for air, all consciousness other than the clarity of my dad's hovering voice disseminated. The rhythm was uncountable by the present EMT as he called for backup. Soon enough, the familiarity of men in blue working around me offered a distraction from the silenced baseball diamond and the children who were climbing the dugout fence to peer over them as they cut off my jersey and favorite bra. A whaling siren overhead soon replaced the sound of my father's trepidation filled voice. While strangers' efforts to fill my veins with alien fluids failed three times before succeeding, I experienced a truer hell than any of my past. By the time we arrived in the E.R. my condition was stable, but my life would never be the same after that game.

On the morning of the second day in November of 2005, my parents and I arrived at Primary Children's Hospital to have the procedure done with the hope of escaping the irritants of my hindered heart forever. What should have been a four-hour process, at most, was drawn out to be nine for my finicky condition. My recovery time also doubled the average for this procedure, but the outcome was well worth the down time. For the first time in over a month and a half, I mounted the dusty treadmill in my home and ran. I was not capable of exercise for the last month because of my frail condition, and didn't run sufficiently before then because of my fatuous heart. As I ran I began to cry, I had never known this freedom, or even knew it existed. It's dauntingly natural for one to take for granted the simplest privileges of health. For the first time in my life I took advantage of the ability to run while my dulcet heartbeat encouraged me the entire way. I had not run or even exercised in at least two months, and my timing this day broke every personal record I'd ever made. My mind toyed with the inscrutable memory of that day in eighth grade when I tried to evade the mile run.

Never again would I neglect that ability.

Today, Randy and I got on the train and went explorin around University City, where the University of Pennsylvania campus is.
Holy moly that place was neat.
Take a gander yourself-