It's Almost Christmas!!!

It's Christmas Eve...and I can't believe it. Ah. I love Christmas. I am very excited about giving people their gifts: one in particular.

So, I'm ecstatic about it being Christmas; however, one of the girls on Union's soccer team is in the hospital. They found a brain tumor on the 22nd that had been growing for six weeks. The doctors thought it looked benign, but they decided to go and perform surgery. It happened yesterday, the 23rd. The surgery went really well, but they discovered that the tumor is the size of a golf ball. It is also located in her brain, not on the surface as was originally thought.

I first learned about this when my roommate and teammate Emily called me Thursday night. When she told me that Nikki had a brain tumor, I just stood there and cried. I couldn't (and still can't) fathom what it felt like to Nikki and her family to find out about this. She had compartment syndrome this season like I did, although hers was acute and not chronic. My point is, she messed with that all season, and now this comes along. She was finally getting over her surgery for the compartment syndrome. Now she may have permanent damage to her left side. At one point, I considered the fact that the compartment syndrome might prevent me from playing soccer ever again. This, however, is a completely different ball game. This won't just affect soccer; it will affect her whole life. Please pray for her. The whole soccer team has been informed, and I know we will pray for her every day until this is over. Who knows when that will be except God?

To Be Needed

This morning I woke up and felt like I needed to turn on my cell phone. I usually don't turn it on until about five minutes before class, so that was different for me. I turn it on, and lo and behold, I have a text message. It's from Amy: "Help. Can u come upstairs?" My first thought was maybe she needed help with some homework or something to that effect. I had decided last night not to wake up until about thirty minutes before class; skip the shower. I was putting on clothes when Amy called me. I told her that I was just putting on clothes and would be there in two minutes. I began to get a little worried. I knew she had an eight o'clock class; it was almost nine.

I went upstairs to find her laying in bed, sick. She had been throwing up since six that morning. While she was in the bathroom, I called Mom to see what I needed to do. Sprite, crackers, and chicken noodle soup were the prescriptions. Mom and Amy both insisted that I go to my only class that morning at 9:25. It is the week before finals, and this would be my last class before my final on Tuesday. Reluctanty, I left for class.

When I got back, Amy was asleep. I took the chance to go to Walmart and pick Sprite and soup. The rest of the day I stayed in their room, taking care of Amy, and sleeping on the LoveSac (I love that thing, by the way). I hated that Amy was sick, and I felt bad for her. However, the whole time, I was glad that I could help. I was glad that she called me to take care of her. I was glad....to be needed.

I was writing in my prayer journal tonight about the day, when I realized something. I think everyone wants to be needed. It's one of those basic human instincts, I guess. It feels great to be there for someone. Now, I realize that not everyone would do everything they could to help someone, because not all people are willing to do things like that. They may not consider it worth their time. I, personally, consider it very worth my time to help someone that needs it. I hate being in situations when I feel like someone doesn't want me there. That is almost a fear of mine.

While I was thinking about the fact that I love to be needed, it hit me that God wants to be needed. Every human being needs God, but not every human being realizes that. Sometimes it's hard to admit you need someone; not until you have hit rock bottom and have no other way of getting back up. God is needed, but people need to respond to that need. That's where the problems begin. How many times have you said, "Don't worry, I got it." or, "I don't need your help."? We do need help. We do need God.

It's so hard for me to let God handle my life. I want to do it on my own. Even when I tell God to take over, I find myself slowly taking control again. Why do I do that? Why do we do that? Why is it so hard to let someone else take the wheel for a little while? Those license plates, bumper stickers, etc. that say, "God is my co-pilot" are incorrect. If God is your co-pilot, is He just the back-up plan if you go down? Is that all He is to you? That's putting Him in second place, somewhere He definitely does not belong. He should be in the pilot seat, first place.

To be needed is everything. God is everything. Or, rather, He should be everything to you. You know how it feels to be needed and to be able to fulfill that need...

Just imagine how God feels when so many people need Him, and so few accept Him.

So, I was told that I needed to update my blog, because I haven't put up anything in a while. It's good to know that someone cares......ha, just joking.

This weekend Amy and I stayed at my house. It was good to do a whole lot of nothing. We did watch four movies, decorated the Christmas tree (well, Amy slept through that...), went to a living nativity, made cookies, went to church, and ate lunch at Mama Jo's. I loved it. I love Christmas. I can't believe it's so close! It's crazy to think that in twenty-one days (technically twenty) it will be Christmas. Wow.

You know what? My family is amazing. I love them all to death. For example, Mom, Amy, and I watched a movie Saturday night. It was over around eleven or midnight, but we had planned to make the cookies. Mom did not complain about staying up later and helping us. She just does stuff like that all the time. Sometimes I'm an idiot, and I take my family for granted. By the way, Mom: I meant to tell you that I'm sorry I haven't called you a lot. You don't know how much it means to me that you respect me enough to wait for me to call you, and I haven't done that at all. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. I was being stupid. I know you'll forgive me, cause you've done that countless times before. I love you, and I thank God for you.

I love all of you.

Another fun night this week: Last night I went to see HARRY POTTER in Memphis on IMAX! How awesome is that? The movie started at 10:25, and Amy, Brittany, and I left Jackson a little after eight. When we got there, there was a line to get into the movie. They weren't letting people in yet; I guess they were cleaning up from the last show. We got really good seats. Emily and Cody came in later. We had to wave at them for practically a full minute before they saw us. Haha. Anyway, the movie was amazing. I cried at the end (with good reason, no matter what Brittany says... ;P ). They did an awesome job with casting once again. Voldemort was so creepy; it was perfect. I kept getting chills! After the movie, we drove back to Union. Unfortunately, I had to use one of my "passes" since we came back so late. Our curfew is two o'clock, and we came in around four. Amy had already used one of hers; we were going to hide her in the back. However, they only asked for my ID. She was asleep anyway.

Looking at my last post, I remembered that I came close to being that tired last semester when I was still in high school. I had a research paper due on Monday. What do you think I did? Waited until the Sunday before, of course! I think I skipped church that night, and I still didn't finish it until around three in the morning. Besides that, I had to get up at FIVE that morning. Our high school has a Great Pretenders show every year; it's a fundraiser for Project Graduation where the seniors and/or their parents perform or lip-sync songs...that's the very basic idea. Well, my mom was in charge of that. I don't know whose idea it was, but someone got the local news station to do a kind of promo the Monday of the week of Great Pretenders. We have a Good Morning West Tennessee every morning at six; I was the lucky person that got to get on the show and try to advertise our show. That meant a five o'clock wake-up call -- maybe it was actually four thirty. Either way, you get the picture. So I'm sitting on the couch in front of the cameras with news guy and the man that ran our show. I have had practically no sleep, and the news guy asks me what some of the different acts are. Oh man. I couldn't even remember my own act at that moment, much less anyone else's! I looked up at the five thousand watt lights on the ceiling and say, "Uh.....Spice Girls?" Lol. I looked so retarded. I was dead tired that day in school. I slept through a lot of my classes.

The moral of my story is: Sleep is good. So is staying up all night just because you want to. I don't regret staying up all night Monday night; it was fun. There's nothing to say I won't do it again. I won't this semester, don't worry. I may not next semester either. I have an essay that I'm supposed to be doing right now. It's not due until Tuesday, and it's just a rough draft. However, I want to get it done and over with so that I don't have to worry about it anymore. I'll try to get to that.

P.S. One more month left until I go to the doctor's to get cleared!!

This has been a crazy day. Well, it actually started out as a crazy night. I was up in Amy's room last night when she proposed that we stay up all night. That sounded like fun, so that's what we did. We got really delirious, and I actually created a PowerPoint presentation about it. If you want to see it, I'll try to e-mail it to you. Amy actually ended up going to bed around 5:45; I went downstairs and worked on the presentation. I never did go to sleep. I had class at 9:25; I slept through about half of the class and didn't even know it. I have never been that tired in my life.

I went to sleep not long after I got back from class. I woke up around 2:45 to rain pounding on my window and a siren: tornado warning. Gaines and I went into the bathroom. Everyone else was gone. I called to check on everyone; a couple of the girls from upstairs had knocked on the door, but Gaines and I were both dead asleep. Storms have never scared me, but I'll have to admit that I was a little worried. I was mainly worried about the other girls. I couldn't get hold of Amy, and no one knew where Kayla was. When Gaines and I had been in the bathroom for about thirty minutes, we came out for a little while. We heard a knock on the door. We opened it to find Emily and Amy; they had ran from the PAC to our dorm. Crazy girls. After that, we all went back into the bathroom. I think we were in there for an hour. It was around that. Gaines was sitting on the toilet, I was on the edge of the bath, and Amy and Emily were sitting on my pillows in the bath. We finally came out because we were hungry...lol. Around four they said it was safe to come out of the bathroom. Not long after that, I went to bed.

Amy woke me up at 5:40. We had planned on eating out with some of the soccer girls, but I thought we probably wouldn't go because of the weather. However, Amy told me that I had twenty minutes to get ready. I jumped in the shower, and Emily, Heather, Amy, and I went to pick up Cheslie. We met Nikki, Cynthia, and Jennifer at Snappy Tomato Pizza. I brought my laptop, and we watched the presentation I made about last night. It's so random. You have to understand that I was completely delirious when I made it. Anyway, after we got back from eating, I went straight to my room to study. I went straight to my room, but I didn't go straight to studying. I'm definitely going to bed early. I'm hoping for ten, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

This is such a glorious Friday! Nanny is getting out of the hospital, Buddy's coming home, and it's just a BEAUTIFUL day. Nanny still has to do therapy while she's at home, but she's improved amazingly. Her legs are mainly weak; when she started hurting, she stopped using them. I think the pain is almost gone, which is such a blessing. I know she's ecstatic about that.
Buddy is coming home with Luke, which made it easier for me! He told me to decide what we were going to do this weekend, and I could not decide. I'm so indecisive about almost everything.

There was something else....oh yeah! I got a letter in my Union mailbox from Ambassadors in Sports. The missionary-in-residence here at Union told me about playing soccer as a form of missions. It sounds awesome to me! In the letter they said, "as a brother in Christ..." That's so wrong. Even Union sends me stuff about the Strongest Man competition. They can't seem to comprehend that Daron could be a female. I guess it usually is a male name, but it does go both ways...I don't. Anyway, I really want to check this out. Of course, Mom and Dad won't particularly be thrilled...money.

I guess that's it. Maybe I should leave it for a while and see if I remember something else later....but I won't torture you.

Well, I've had a pretty busy week. I went to my first YoungLife Club last Monday night. That was fun. I had no idea what to expect, but I was excited and a little nervous. The kids were a little crazy; it was Halloween. They did enjoy throwing the candy back and forth at each other. We were singing songs, and they put up the words for "Free Falling". Our leader asked a couple of the guys to introduce the new girls (me and two other girls) to the song. My first thought was, "I know this song. Why did he ask them to introduce us to it?" I got my answer when we got to the first chorus. One of the guys standing next to me bent down and SCREAMED in my ear, "AND I'M FREE!!!!" Ouch. That was definitely interesting. The next night we had our last Quest meeting, which is training for YoungLife leaders. We discussed our experiences and what we thought about it.

Wednesday my grandmother on my dad's side, Nanny, was admitted into the hospital for surgery at 8 in the morning. Around 11:00 I went to see how it was going. She wasn't out of surgery yet, so I just hung around talking to my parents and Aunt Gail. I had to get back to school for my 12:00 class. I also had a meeting with my soccer coach at 2:30 that afternoon. That went okay; nothing special. I ate before my meeting, because I hadn't eaten earlier. At around 4 I headed back to the hospital to check on Nanny again. When I got there, her condition wasn't the best. Her throat hurt from the tube they stuck in, and her back was hurting from where they made the incision. Oh, yeah, I forgot to say.....she had a ruptured disk in her back that was killing her legs. At first she thought it was arthritis, but they evidently took x-rays and found otherwise. Her surgery was made complicated by the fact that there were a ton of ligaments grown over the disk. After surgery her legs did feel better, but that was overshadowed by pain elsewhere. Wednesday night I was there for two hours. She was trying to go to sleep, but she was in so much pain that it was very difficult. When I left the hospital I went directly to my dorm. Brittany called, and I talked to her for a minute. I didn't feel like talking a whole lot. Being at the hospital depressed me. Nanny was nearly helpless because of the pain; it just kills me when someone else is hurting, whether it be mentally, physically, or emotionally. I couldn't do anything to help her. I also talked to Buddy, but that wasn't for very long either. I think I worried him a little. Anyway, I ended up going to bed at TEN, which I never do. I didn't get to sleep until 10:45; Amy came in at 11:15 or so, because I had sent her a message that I needed to talk to her. We had a great talk that lasted until past midnight. After that, I went back to sleep.

Thursday I can't really remember what I did. That's weird...oh, yeah! Sorry. I went to my one and only class then went to Lambuth to visit Brittany! That's what I did. That was a blast. I got to meet several of her friends; they were cool. Now I seriously can't remember what I did that night. This is just sad. I really just called Amy to ask what I did, and she told me. I had to finish my stupid essay for Written Comp. They were causing a ruckus upstairs, and I kept calling Amy to tell them to be quiet. It didn't work. I finally finished it, so that was good. It seems like I did something else that night. I did go to an English major/minor meeting at 2:30 that afternoon.

We went camping Friday night. It was two of my roommates, one of their sisters, Amy, one of her roommates, and me. Just six of us. We all enjoyed that, even though we left the food in Gaines's car, and she drove off with it. We had to come back here and cook breakfast instead of doing it at the campsite like we had originally planned. I burned my hand that night as I was trying to fix the fire. It was a stupid move, I know. I wasn't burned too badly. It did blister a little bit, so it was almost a second degree burn.

Saturday night I travelled back to H-don for a birthday party. It was my best friend's boyfriend's birthday. We ate and played games from 6:30 to past eleven. I left at eleven, because I had to get back to Union. Today I went to church and hung out with Amy. It was definitely a crazy week. I knew I wouldn't have trouble filling up the time left by the end of soccer season. I worked out yesterday, so I'm a little sore from that. I told Amy, who went with me, that I was sore; she said, "Why are you sore from working out?" I looked at her, then said, "Because I haven't done anything in TWO WEEKS!" "Oh, yeah." She went running, and I rode my bike beside her. It kind of made me sad that I couldn't be running beside her, instead of riding my bike beside her. I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm resting now so that I can play a thousand times better later. After I catch up on running and everything, that is. I can't remember what it's like to really play soccer. And I'm gonna leave it at that.

So, that is my insane week in a nutshell. It's not really half of what went on, but you get the idea. Oh, yeah, I'm coughing my head off as well. It started some time in the middle of last week. I really started coughing Friday or Saturday. Being around the fire Friday night definitely didn't help. Anyway, I'll stop now. I think I've written quite enough.

Who is that? Might it be Trinity, entering the Matrix? Or is it me, dressed up as Trinity, checking my voicemail? I can't decide....

Yeah, I randomly decided to be Trinity after looking in the Halloween store here in Jackson. It is so much fun! I even bought a Nerf gun, which I used to shoot anyone that annoyed me....or just anyone. I went so far as to wear it to class today. Man, that was a blast. I shot Coach Turner, who was wearing a hat with a big blue fish on it. I definitely got some looks as I walked down the halls and sidewalks.

I thought y'all would like some more information on compartment syndrome, since not a lot of people have even heard of it:

Compartment syndrome is a painful condition that results when pressure within the muscles builds to dangerous levels. This prevents nourishment from reaching nerve and muscle cells. Muscle groups in the arms, hands, legs, feet and buttocks can be affected. Within these muscle groups are nerves and blood vessels. They are covered by tough membrane (fascia), which does not readily expand. The whole unit is called a compartment. If pressure within the compartment gets too high (for example, from too much swelling or bleeding after surgery or injury), it can damage blood vessels and nerve and muscle cells.
Compartment syndrome can be either acute or chronic. Acute compartment syndrome is a medical emergency. Without treatment, it can lead to paralysis, loss of limb or death. Chronic compartment syndrome is not a medical emergency.....
Chronic compartment syndrome: Chronic compartment syndrome is characterized by pain and swelling caused by exercise. It can be a significant problem for an athlete. It gets better when you rest. It usually occurs in the leg. It is occasionally accompanied by numbness or difficulty in moving the foot. Symptoms dissipate quickly when activity stops. Compartment pressures may remain elevated for some time afterwards.
Symptoms
A combination of signs and symptoms characterize compartment syndrome. The classic sign of acute compartment syndrome is pain, especially when the muscle is stretched.
The pain may be intensely out of proportion to the injury, especially if no bone is broken.
There may also be a tingling or burning sensation (paresthesias) in the muscle.
The muscle may feel tight or full.
If the area becomes numb or paralysis sets in, cell death has begun and efforts to lower the pressure in the compartment may not be successful in restoring function.
Treatment
See your doctor right away if there is concern about the development of compartment syndrome. He or she has instruments that measure the compartment pressure. The doctor uses the result to determine if you have compartment syndrome and whether you need surgery.
To diagnose chronic compartment syndrome, the doctor must rule out other conditions that could also cause pain in the lower leg. These may include stress fractures of the shinbone (tibia) and tendinitis. To diagnose chronic compartment syndrome, the physician measures the intramuscular pressure before exercise, one minute after exercise, and five minutes after exercise. If pressures remain high, you have chronic compartment syndrome. Non-surgical treatment is usually effective for this condition. This includes:
Avoiding doing activities that cause pain and swelling
Applying ice and elevating the limb slightly
Taking aspirin or ibuprofen to reduce inflammation
Do not wrap the leg because this will increase the pressure and aggravate the condition. Ask your doctor if cross-training with low-impact activities is OK as long as symptoms do not return. Surgical release may be needed if conservative treatment is ineffective.
Treatment Options: Surgical
If surgery is required to relieve the pressure, the physician will make an incision and cut open the skin and fascia covering the affected compartment. This allows excess fluids to drain, reducing the pressure in the compartment. The incision is surgically repaired when swelling recedes. Sometimes a skin graft may be needed. (http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/fact/thr_report.cfm?Thread_ID=287&topcategory=About+Orthopaedics)

There you go...it's not a common thing. It's just my fate that I would get some weird condition that I've never heard of. I'm weird and complicated anyway; why not add compartment syndrome? It's chronic compartment syndrome instead of acute, so that's better. God is teaching me a lesson through all of this; I just pray I catch it instead of getting caught up in the dark side of it.

As indicated by the above title, I am Daron, and I am random. There's no telling what I'll put on here, but I can guarantee that it won't always make sense to everyone...including myself. I'm not sure why I decided to do this; I do like to write out my thoughts.
It has been quite an eventful week, and it's just halfway over. One of my friends is engaged, I found out that I have compartment syndrome in my calves, the soccer season is over, and my grandmother was going to have surgery, but it was cancelled. Crazy stuff. I'm sad that my first season of college soccer is over, but I finally get to rest. I, hopefully, have three more years of college soccer. I didn't get the most out of my first year; my calves wouldn't allow it. I have to admit that I let it slow me down more than I should have. Now I have to rest and do nothing for two months. That's not going to be easy. At least the season is over. When I was out for two weeks during the season, it was so difficult. It was so frustrating to sit on the bench and watch the game, not being able to play. It was frustrating when I did play, because I couldn't play at the level I know I am capable of. There were several times where I felt like I just didn't even want to try. I had a terrible attitude. I just wanted to play without feeling the pain in my calves; I wanted to get taken out of the game because I was tired, not because I couldn't stand the pain. Besides all that, I felt like I was hurting the rest of the team. I felt like I wasn't helping anyone a lot of the time. I wasn't where I needed to be, and I was being lazy. Oh well. It's over now, and there's next year to contend with. If this two month resting period doesn't cause the compartment syndrome to dissipate, I'll have to have surgery. That would set me back in the spring.
Hopefully, if it does show up again, it will show up far before the season so that I can have the surgery and be ready to go for next year. I just don't want to deal with this stuff anymore. I know it is meant to be a learning experience; I just pray that I am a better person because of it. It's definitely shown me how much I want to play soccer. When I came back from being out for two weeks, I was so ecstatic to be playing again. It had been a long time since I got that excited about playing soccer. My first practice back I was tripped by one of the girls, and I hit the ground. You cannot understand how great that made me feel. When I saw the scrape on my elbow, I was even more overjoyed.
I think I've said enough for my first blog. I tend to rant a little, so I assure you that I will write way more than this frequently. Not only do I rant, but I also like to get very detailed about everything. That means that a simple story may take a good ten sentences that are unnecessary. The background of the story usually has to be laid, then every little thing that might or might not be related. Even now I am rambling.