“I want to go home.”
If you would have asked me a month ago, I would have sworn this is was a phrase I would never utter or think. I very well know that this is where God wants me, so what’s the point of going home? I’ll just be unhappy. The race can give me just about everything home can. If I’m being honest, I viewed the idea of wanting to go home as a weakness. It was only out of someone being weak that they would WISH to leave this incredible gift.
Flash forward a month and a hard slap from reality and I now wish to apologize for ever viewing “I want to go home” as weakness. I am sorry. This month has been incredible; my best yet. But it’s also been the hardest and I reached a point where the only thing I could think was “I want to go home”. About a week ago, I developed a rash on my legs and it randomly spread to other parts of my body. No big deal, it would probably go away. But it just kept getting worse, it started forming little blisters, it itched, and burned. Especially if I was sweating. Seeing as I constantly sweat, it kept getting worse. So I went to the Doctor to have it checked out and he told me it looked like a plant rash (even though I informed him I had not been messing with plants) so I went home with a cream and the rash continued to spread over night. I woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache and having to run to the bathroom. After my third round of diarrhea, my body had enough and I ended up throwing up. As I sat there, I prayed asking God to let that be the only time I threw up, I couldn’t handle doing that any more. Thankfully, that was the only time. I woke up the next morning feeling worse than I have in a very long time. I didn’t want to drink water because every time I did, I had to run to the bathroom. My squad leader woke me up at one point and handed me my water forcing me to drink, I was so weak. I told my team mate that I felt worse than I ever had on the race, I felt dehydrated, and like I was going to pass out. So it was off to the doctor for round two, this time, I chose a different doctor. He told me the stomach bug was probably just a 24hr thing but he thought my virus was coming from a parasite- finally, some progress! So I went home with the supplies for a stool sample and the instructions to do it when I was feeling better. I went home and fell asleep almost right away. The next day, I woke up feeling refreshed and headed back to the doctor to hopefully get some results. The parasite came back negative and the doctor told me she thought it was a virus, but she doesn’t carry the test, and that I don’t need medicine for it because it’s “small and will go away”. At that point, I lost it. Three different doctors told me three different things, but no one really knows what’s going on. If I were back in the states, I would easily know what was going on with me AND I could stay in the AC so that I wasn’t sweating. All I wanted in that moment was to go home. I just wanted a hug from my Mom and freedom to go get fast food. But then we pulled up to New Hope, and I saw the kids sweet faces and I smelled the delicious meal that was prepared for us and I realized that wanting to go home is not weakness, it’s a human instinct. We turn to comfort and what we know when we’re feeling down and having a rough time.
