Back at home, my anxiety only seemed to get worse as my first day of school drew closer. I spent my final two weeks of summer at Clarke's house. The first night I was there, we had to pick Hannah, Ryder, and Ryder's best friend up at the airport. It was a late pick-up, and Clarke wanted to take us all out to eat afterward if everyone was up for it. If not, we'd stop by the local Walmart on the way back to get some food and snacks for the night. 

While we were driving to the airport, we ended up getting caught in a heavy thunderstorm. As the pressure suddenly dropped, blood started to spew out of my nose like Niagara Falls! For the first few seconds, I had no idea what was happening, and pitifully asked Clarke for help. Hannah often had nosebleeds growing up, so Clarke was used to dealing with them and quickly reassured me that it was normal. Except, for me, it wasn't normal. I couldn't remember the last time my nose bled, and the time I did remember it bleeding, it didn't bleed nearly as heavily. This nose bleed was so heavy that I couldn't breathe through my nose without sucking up huge amounts of blood. 

Clarke and I dug through his truck hoping to find tissues, but there were none. He recently cleaned out his truck, so the only thing he had was a handful of yellow notepad sheets. I held my nostrils shut with one hand while I quickly gathered up a fistful of crumpled notepad sheets. Obviously, yellow notepad sheets aren't meant to clean up fluids, so I quickly bled through everything, and had to use my hoodie to clean everything up the best I could. In the end, I was drenched in my own blood, as was the seat I was in, the floor below my feet, and even the ceiling had a few impressive blotches of blood on it. 

For a half-hour, I had to sit with blood all over myself before Clarke could pull into the nearest gas station. He quickly handed me a bunch of brown paper towels from a dispenser, which were out there to be used to dry off windshields. I used about 40 of those brown paper towels to clean myself and my area up the best I could. Clarke bought a couple of water bottles from the convenience store, which we used to wet some of the paper towels so I could clean up the dried blood on my face and the faux leather seat I was sitting on, but they didn't work to get any blood out of my clothes. 

For the next three hours, I sat uncomfortable and mortified in my blood-soaked clothes. When we pulled up to the pick-up curb at the airport, I could do nothing but flash a half-assed smile while I refused to move from my seat. Ryder's best friend, whom I'd never met before, just took one look at me and instantly called shotgun, while Ryder and Hannah played rock-paper-scissors to see who'd have to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with me. Ryder ended up having to sit in the middle next to me, while I did my best to squish up against the window as much as possible. I didn't want to be touched just as much as Ryder didn't want to rub his bare knees against my bloodstained jeans. Ryder even mumbled something along the lines of, "I knew I shouldn't have worn shorts today."

When Hannah finally gained the courage to ask me what the hell happened, I told her I did not know. I hadn't gotten into a fight with someone twice my size or pissed off the wrong gun owner, although that's exactly what it looked like. I just had a record-breaking nosebleed that lasted for 20 minutes before even beginning to taper off, and there was nothing I could do to stop it or clean up the mess. If Clarke wasn't there to verify my story, I'm sure everyone else would've called bullshit. Nosebleeds that bad don't just happen out of the blue, even though that seemed to be exactly what happened to me. 

I ended up taking that as a sign of bad times ahead, and got even more anxious. I knew something was seriously wrong, I just didn't know what. I seemed very healthy. Clarke's roommates were gone for a week, leaving me to care for the horses, while Clarke, Hannah, and Ryder took turns taking care of the dogs. I took care of the horses with ease. I chucked bales out of the hay loft and then carried them to the feed box everyday, moved the horses from the paddock to the pasture and back every afternoon, made sure their water trough was always full, and gave the horses some attention when they needed it. Usually, when I get sick, my health dives down really quickly. My strength and energy are usually the first to go, and they go fast. But, that did not happen to me that time, so I had no reason other than anxiety and that nosebleed to suspect anything was wrong. Towards the last week of my summer, I decided to write my nosebleed off as a freak incident, and finally felt my anxiety begin to subside. 

When I checked my calendar and saw that I only had a few days left before school began, about a week after the nose bleed incident, my anxiety got kicked right back into overdrive again. I was tormented by a horrible sense of dread for those last few days. I didn't know why it was so horrible. It just was. It was unlike anything I'd ever felt before.

My subconscious mind was desperately sounding every alarm bell possible, but consciously, I didn't know why I was so worked up. I was pretty used to going to new schools, and I'd decided a long time before that the new school I was attending for 11th grade was the answer to my prayers regarding getting into a better school. I was enrolled in an art class, a creative writing class, had two free periods I could use for study hall, and would be surrounded by 300 other students and many other teachers who didn't all think the same way. Surely, there was nothing to be afraid of. Yet, I was still extremely anxious, and couldn't talk myself out of that anxiety.

When the first day finally dawned, I was instantly greeted by excited teachers and an overwhelming number of students who wanted to get to know me. At that school, the dress code was very relaxed. I was allowed to hide my eyes below the bill of my camo hat I wore that day, so I didn't have to make eye-contact with everyone who shook my hand and asked who I was. As the day progressed, I finally began to ask myself why I'd been so worked up. There wasn't any danger. That school was actually a lot easier on me than any of my previous schools had, especially since half of my day was spent doing art, writing, and mostly reading or sketching in study hall. Also, I didn't feel pressured by anyone to think, dress, or act in a certain way. Just as long as I was respectful towards everyone, I was ok to be who I wanted to be. 

But, my subconscious mind refused to listen to my logical brain. It kept on sounding the alarm, and as the days progressed, I got more and more frustrated. I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and at school, I really struggled to sit still at my desk due to anxiety. 

But, no matter what, my anxiety did not subside. Within a week, I began to notice other things. I was very tired, which I attributed to not getting much sleep. But I was also developing a cough. It was subtle at first, but when the second week of school came, it was considerably worse. At home, my mom questioned me if I was getting sick. While deep down inside I knew I was, I lied and told her it was just stress. My mom clearly didn't believe me, but decided to leave me alone. She kept an eye on me, however, and was disturbed by just how quickly my health deteriorated. 

By the second weekend of the school year, my rosy cheeks had turned pale as snow, and I had bags under my eyes from exhaustion. My cough was also consistent, and I couldn't breathe out of my nose due to the congestion. I was clearly sick from something, though I refused to admit it until my mom pressed me to tell the truth. Finally, I burst into tears, and told her what was really going on. I hated to admit it, but I had to. My mom, satisfied with my answer, sent me to bed early, and told me to cancel all of my bus and uber trips to school that week. We needed to get to the bottom of that infection before I went back to school, because in her own words, I couldn't attend school if I was dead. With Cystic Fibrosis, if an infection is left untreated, death is a very real possibility. 

I laid in bed awake, sobbing out of fear and defeat. I knew something was seriously wrong, but I wasn't sure what, and I was almost too afraid to find out. All that I knew is that I felt terrible, and the only way I really knew how to fix the problem was to get on antibiotics. But then my anxiety kicked in. What if the infection I had was antibiotic resistant? What if I ended up in the hospital? What if my illness turned out to be a cluster of antibiotic resistant infections? I tried to shut my emotional, anxiety-ridden mind up, but I knew those were questions that had some serious merit, and logic wasn't gonna stop them. They were logical questions after all! 

I eventually fell asleep, though I shivered and cried the whole time my conscious mind was awake. Fear had a hold of me once again, and it wasn't letting go any time soon. I knew I had a long road ahead of me, and was not looking forward to taking it on.