spoonie | Emily Bracey

“You have rejection and you have to learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.”

Rejection beautifully explained by my girl Taylor Swift. If someone as successful as T-Swift can grasp the concept of rejection, why can’t you and I?

For starters, it’s an ugly word. Reject; one definition literally means ‘to cast out, or eject; vomit’. Even worse, ‘to discard as useless or unsatisfactory.” Is that how we’re supposed to feel when we don’t get something we really work for and want? Like useless bile? No wonder a girl will lay in bed for days when her crush doesn’t ask her out, a guy break down when he doesn’t make the sports team, and High School students stop caring when his or her dream school says, “sorry, we don’t want you”. But what about that twenty-three year old who thought she found her dream job, successfully completed two interviews and then woke up to the “We would like to inform you, we found someone else” e-mail? I felt like my ex was breaking up with me all over again. “Be a man! Call me or say it to my face!” “I’m too good for this anyway!” “Is this really happening?” “Now what?” “I need a drink!” Truth be told, needing a drink applies to almost any situation in my life. Anyway, I asked myself, “Is it the rejection that’s upsetting me or the fear of the unknown?” I guess you really can’t have rejection without some sort of fear. After my five-minute freak out, yes it literally lasted five minutes, I was back on the job hunt.

Maybe it’s my super positive and super annoying attitude about life, or maybe it was all the rejection I have dealt with growing up. Never-the-less, I was fine. What would being upset and bitter do about the situation? Maybe it was the vino, but I started thinking, “well if I didn’t get this great job, I can’t wait and see what better opportunity God has for me”, “I’m only 23!” and in the words of a close friend, “You’re still pretty”. Take it from the queen of rejection, you’ll be fine. Life truly is full of ups and downs, but only you can decide what counts as an up and a down.

Honestly, life isn’t short. It’s the longest thing you’ll ever do. So, the next time you’re faced with rejection, pour yourself a glass, take a deep breath, look in the mirror, smile and say, “I’m super pretty”.

POTS. No, not marijuana or pots and pans that you cook with. I’m talking about Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. My life was completely changed when I was diagnosed with the chronic illness, POTS, in June of 2008. I never wanted to blog about my illnesses (yes, there are more), but I feel like I have to because it’s such a big part of my life and I know others are struggling with this debilitating illness.

What is POTS? I’m obviously not a doctor, but there have been many times where I felt like I knew a lot more then them. So, I’m going to try and explain this in the simplest way. It’s a form of dysautonomia. I lost you already, didn’t I?

“Dysautonomia is an umbrella term for various conditions in which the autonomic nervous system (ANS) malfunctions. Dysautonomia is a type of neuropathy affecting the nerves that carry information from the brain and spinal cord to the heart, bladder, intestines, sweat glands, pupils, and blood vessels.” Yes, I did just copy and paste that from wikipedia. We’ve all done it.

Okay, here we go again- POTS is a form of dysautonomia that mainly affects the patient when they’re in the upright position or when he or she changes positions. Personally, my blood pressure is typically low (90/40) and drops even more when I stand up. While my blood pressure is going down, my heart rate is typically jumping up to almost 200 beats per minute. (Fun Fact: I used to have a heart monitor that my doctors thought wasn’t working correctly because it would read my heart rate at almost 250 beats per minute. It wasn’t broken, I was.) So, heart rate goes up, blood pressure goes down and so does Emily. Yup, that’s right I drop unconscious. Lately, knock on wood, it hasn’t been happening that often, but back in high school it was a daily struggle. Think of all the things your body does subconsciously; heart rate, blood pressure, nervous system, digestive system, ect… With POTS, they basically throw tantrums and stop working. Not all at once and sometimes they’re all working fine, but when one goes haywire I can become debilitated.

Let’s start with my head, besides the fainting. How often does someone ask you if you are on drugs? Happens to me a lot. My eyes get totally glassy and I get this “duh” look to my face because I’m so out of it. I’ll get so disoriented that I’ll move my head and it will take my eyes a second to catch up. On a really bad day, me carrying a conversation is such a task. I have literally made up words and have not made any sense to my friends and family before. For example, if this blog post isn’t flowing as well as usually and not making sense, blame it on the POTS, for real.

My eyeballs! I’ve always have had okay vision. I’ve needed glasses for close work, but I can function without them. With POTS, one day my vision can be perfect and the next day I have my glasses glued to my head. Sometimes I can’t even see. Pretty cool, huh? Just kidding, it’s pretty terrifying, especially if I’m somewhere new. My family can tell when this happens because I put my hands on the walls and feel my way to the nearest chair. I’m a pretty good navigator, they call me Sacagawea. Haha, not really. My friends and family do tell me I have zombie eyes sometimes, though; One pupil will be really big and the other will be super small. Hence, zombie eyes.

Okay, down to my heart, it’s tachy. Tachycardia that is. I thank God everyday that the mechanisms of my heart are all okay, but it’s pretty scary and at times painful to all of a sudden have your heart rate shoot up.

Alright, to be completely honest, my eyes are doing weird things right now, so I’m going to wrap this part up and finish in a day or two.

POTS is considered an invisible illness. Most of the time I just look super tired and out of it. With that, be kind to all and never judge because someone may be fighting a battle you know nothing about. Until next time! xoxo