Such Little Time

I am fully aware that I haven't blogged in an entire month, but I'm not going to apologise for it, because it genuinely isn't my fault. For the past three and a half weeks (since Friday 9th), I've been stuck in my bedroom with the lights off and (new, black, thick) curtains drawn, unable to do anything but watch movies and sleep. I only left my room to get more water, eat, and go to the loo.

Because I've had the worst migraine ever.

I was up crying with my mum one night during the first week, and a little while later, I actually went into A+E. That's how bad it was. The slightest noise or sliver of light made my hands instinctively fly up to cover my eyes and let out a whimper of pain. It was awful. Eventually, I started spending a few minutes on the computer, but I couldn't read more than a couple of sentences at a time, and I had to set it aside every ten minutes. Therefore, I wasn't up for being on the interwebs, let alone writing a blog.

It's been gradually easing, and it's nearly completely gone now, but having been sheltered from noise/light for so long, I'm still rather sensitive towards it. I've missed two weeks of school, and this week is half-term, but I'll be going to back on Monday.

But that's not the only thing I'm doing on Monday. Throughout November, I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don't know, that stands for National Novel Writing Month. As it sounds, you have to write a novel in one month. Specifically, a novel with at least 50,000 words in it. Now, I'm not actually doing that ... I'm doing the NaNoWriMo Young Writers' Project, which is for people up to the age of seventeen who don't feel capable of doing the entire 50k. Unlike the original site, you can set your own goal -- I'm going for 25,000 words. So you probably won't be hearing much from me throughout November, either. AND in December, I'm going to be editing, studying, AND reading my friends' novels.

But I'll try to blog as much as I can.

I'm really worried about my Book Count. I know it's just a fun challenge that I've been partaking in all year, but I still have to read eight books before 31st December, at 11:59pm. I can almost hear you now: "What are you on about? You still have two months!" But with November pretty much cramped, and December I'm pretty busy, I don't know how many books I'll manage to read. (I will, however, be counting my friends' novels towards it). But even more importantly than my Book Count, is my English teacher's. He wants everyone in our class to read ten books before the end of term. That means that the few days before the New Year (which is when I generally get a lot of reading done) won't count towards his ... manga doesn't count in his mind, and 10 poems can equal "one book" in our book logs -- but I still don't know how I'm going to manage.

I'm thinking that maybe I'll let him know about NaNoWriMo, and see if he'll let me read a lower book count/let my friends' novels count towards it.

Anyway, I have to go and eat dinner now. I have another blog in the works that I started while I was ill (wrote about three paragraphs before it got too much), and I'll probably finish that while procrastinating next month. Heh.

Asthma Attack

This is copied straight from my dA journal, because I can't be bothered to write it out again. Note that "today" actually means Thursday, because that's when it happened ...

I had an asthma attack in PE today. It was so freaking scary O_O

We were doing cross-country relay, and I had to throw the baton to the next person in my group 'cos I was too weak to go any further. I collapsed on the floor, my breathing worse than a seventy-year-old smoker's, in so much pain (in my lungs) that I started crying (I don't cry. Today was the first time that my best friend of two years saw me cry). My friend, who was in a different group, got to the same station as me a few seconds after I collapsed, and sat with me and cuddled me and tried to calm me down, while panicking herself ("Deep breaths, Steph. Ohmygod, ohmygod. Come on, it's alright. Deeeeeep breaths. Ohmygod." Because she's a sweetheart.

Someone got the teacher, who literally sprinted across the field (She was near the changing rooms, and I was at the opposite end of the field ... it's a BIG field) to me. I tried to get my inhalor out of my pocket, but I was shaking so badly that my hand kept falling away from the zip.

Eventually, I took my inhalor, and I sat there for a good five minutes, on the soaking wet grass, shaking, crying, gasping for breath. And then, after I started recovering, the teacher made me walk across the field. I nearly fell over at least five times, because I felt really unstable, and she ended up supporting me half the way. And then I sat (again, on the soaking wet ground) and stared at the grass until the end of the lesson.

I've been in a zombie-like state all day. PE was first period, and the rest of the day, I just walked around blankly, almost completley unresponsive. It felt like someone was stabbing my lungs every time I breathed, and when I spoke, it was like they were twisting the knife. I nearly started crying again a couple of times, but I managed to fight back the tears. It was awful.

I got a lot of hugs and arm rubs, too ... I don't like attention, but it was interesting to see who cared and who didn't. Jess was clearly the one who cared the most.

It's still painful when I breathe, but it's not as bad. More of a pin-prick. Compared to the pain I felt all day, this is nothing.

But I'm still shaken. This was my first proper asthma attack. Asthma has given all kinds of pains in PE, the most popular being what I describe as "someone sticking a knife down my throat and twisting it." ... basically, when the cold air gets down my throat, my asthma kicks in, and causes agony. But that is NOTHING now, after today. I've had small asthma attacks before, but this one hit me so strongly and so suddenly, it was so much worse.

Worst. Experience. Ever.