April

April has never been the best month of the year for me. Last year was one of the absolute worst when my sweet little Romo died. I'm far from over that and can't think about it too much without getting lost in the grief. Maybe it's something I will never fully get over, but we all do our best to keep moving forward. This year has been up and down, better than last year but still with its challenges.

I still think of April as my second birthday, a time when I came out of a long fight with a terrible illness. I've now met two more people who had similar experiences with viral meningitis as I did. One gentleman contracted the virus from a feral kitten. I was bitten by a spider. The other lady I met didn't have a specific incident; she just ended up with it. All three of us were misdiagnosed and sent home, and all of us ended up back in the hospital for an extended stay shortly after being discharged. I don't know if this says more about the difficulty of diagnosing the illness or our healthcare system in general, but it doesn't seem right.

I'm not happy to know that others suffered like I did, but I was glad to know that I wasn't the only one who had lingering symptoms. I mean, I'm glad someone can relate. Two years after the worst of it, I finally felt like I was more solidly on my feet, but even now, I know that I'm not the same person I was before the spider bite. No, I don't mean I don a cape and fight crime like Spiderman now; I just mean there are some issues that occasionally pop up with my body and brain, issues I'm sure are related to the effects of the virus. Now that I know I'm not alone in this, it feels a little less scary.

Last year, I bought myself a bike to celebrate what I think of as a birthday of sorts, the time of year I recovered after nearly dying from meningitis. Since I had foot surgery recently this year and put a lot of cash into some car repairs, I think I'm going to keep any celebrations limited to splurges on small-scale things like cheese or chocolate, but April will always be a time of great reflection for me.