It’s Wednesday night , so the story continues.
Picking up from last week –
I went into the studio for my project the night I got out of the hospital. My friend Logan was kind enough to come lay down some guitar tracks, and my friend Kelly was nice enough to come engineer.
(I don’t remember exactly what times we were there, but we were some time in the midnight to 6am block. So, it was a huge favor they were doing me.)
I don’t remember why these weren’t recorded before I went in – lack of studio time, or something needing to be re-done or what. But the point is, I needed them and we got them done immediately.
I was still having troubles sitting up. It was pretty super painful. So, I ran the session while lying on the ground the whole time. How anybody put up with me, I don’t know. But I’m so glad they did.
And a note about that lying flat thing – to this day, I don’t use pillows anymore. And I often have to take eating breaks during meals. I don’t know what those things are about, but they started after open heart surgery, and I never shook them… That makes me a little weird, doesn’t it?
Back to 2010, I spent basically all my free time around that time working on my soundalike project. I actually became an infinitely better producer/engineer after getting sick than I would’ve ever otherwise. (I’m still not great at that stuff, but better than I was to say the least.) So, repeating the semester wasn’t necessarily the worst thing.
I started going back to class immediately. I think the first week I only went to half or so, and was working my way up. (I had a doctor’s note to be out for six weeks, so I didn’t have to worry too much about going or not going….)
(Though it was awkward if you’d go to one teacher’s class then decide to nap through the next one. (Granted, it’s not that awkward. A number of college students do that when they’re not on painkillers coming back from open-heart surgery.))
Even though I was a good student who sat quietly and didn’t bring attention to herself, some of the teachers I was closest to who looked out for me the most encouraged me to just stop coming to classes altogether and continue resting at home. (I think the whole sitting quietly, not bringing attention to myself thing is what made people worried. ;))
Just going home to rest was sort of a boring idea. But I think having a recovering patient around the halls made people nervous. Oh my gosh! Speaking of recovering patient – I think this was the moment I realized they might be right and I maybe didn’t want to be around the school in my state.
So, I went to one of my teacher’s office hours after school the week after I’d gotten out of the hospital. He had office hours on the later side of things. There weren’t tons of people around, but some.
I was lying in the hallway (’cause sitting up was hard) waiting for my turn to go in, when a DOG comes down the hallway!
That’s right. A dog. In a school hallway!
(Photo Credit: Josh Plueger for U.S. Air Force)
I immediately got up to get away, and of course felt a good amount of pain in the process moving so quickly and moving around my precious sternum and stomach that were oh so fragile.
The pain made me a little short-tempered, and I yelled at the girl for letting her dog just roam the halls of a school with no leash or anything. I mean, honestly, what is wrong with this girl?
She was mad that I was mad and we got into a short screaming match with each other.
The teacher I was waiting to see was Stephen (whom I trust immensely). He used that run-in to add to his “take care of yourself and get out of school for a bit” case. After that incident, it wasn’t that hard to convince me.
This is where I’ll pick up next week.