Yesterday I was officially released from the hospital. They gave me my discharge papers and a handful of prescriptions of meds that I would need to take while I stayed home. My dad helped me pack up all of my belongings after discovering that the hospital had carts with wheels to help transport the stuff to the car (inside joke for Onur if you are reading this).

 

After we finished up packing all of my belongings, they gave me one last shot of Neupogen in my stomach to give me one final boost to my immune system before I left the unit. I took a shower, put on deodorant, brushed my teeth, and dressed in “normal” clothing. I was all ready to go and was so excited to just be able to walk outside and breath fresh air.

 

 

Oh…and yes, I am wearing a Packer t-shirt. If there was one thing I was pulling for yesterday, it was the Packers. As we headed north to Two Rivers, we stopped at a Chile’s restaurant in Sheboygan to grab some food. I ate a full rack of these honey habanero ribs along with a dish of loaded mashed potatoes and cinnamon apples. Oh…AND we ate one of those awesome blossom fried onion things beforehand. It wasn’t even the food that was making me so happy. It was everything else. It was all of the other little things that everyone does on a daily basis that felt so great. It was the driving down the highway, filling the tank with gas, looking at the trees and the grass go by, and just soaking up all of the other stuff that we all take for granted.

 

That’s one thing that I wish the general public would realize more than they do. For the most part, we all take these simple things in life for granted. It’s not until those things are threatened or taken away, possibly due to a deadly illness, that we begin to realize how valuable good health is. You could have everything in the world you could possibly want or do…but if you aren’t healthy, you’ve got nothing. So tomorrow when you are out and about, running errands and so forth, take a minute or two and just soak up all of the “little things” that I have been talking about.

 

From Australia to Bolivia, Turkey to Russia, I have been getting support from all over the world. It’s amazing at how many people I have been able to reach out to with my situation and story. If there is one thing, besides me getting better, that I want, is for anyone and everyone who has been following my thoughts and messages to come away from all of this with a more positive outlook on life and all it has to offer.

 

I will end tonight’s blog with a picture of a calligraphy assignment that I did from one of my art classes seven years ago in high school…long before I was diagnosed…

 

 

Eric