Take the Jump: You Never Know What View Is Waiting On The Other Side
True Happiness
October 24, 2023 was the scariest day of my life. It was the day that changed my life for the better but also for the worse. That day is a huge part of the reason that I decided to ditch my corporate job search and follow my entrepreneurial dreams instead. October 24, 2023 is why Recently Media exists.
Growing up, I was always a glass half-empty girl. I called myself a realist, which is basically just a pessimist in denial. While I had a very joyful childhood, around the age of fourteen, I became a very negative person. I could find the negative in anything. I was angry with life which continued on for about six years.
For the Fall of 2023, I made the life-changing decision to study abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark for the semester. That experience truly changed my life. For the first time in my life, I felt free. I made amazing friends, I was traveling the world, and having fun while doing it. Throughout high school and college, whenever anyone asked me what my goals were or what I wanted to accomplish in life, the one thing that I always said was that I wanted to achieve “true happiness” whatever that was. Studying abroad in Copenhagen was the first time in my life that I feel like I got as close to that feeling as I ever had. I felt like I was on top of the world, well, until October 24, 2023.
Something’s Wrong
That Tuesday started like any other. I woke up feeling off but brushed it off as part of my Orthostatic Intolerance, a minor condition that affects my heart rate. I figured I just needed salt, water, and rest. I went to class, had lunch, and later headed to my three-hour lecture like always.
My older brother was studying abroad in the same program at the time, and we happened to share that class which is something I would later realize was incredibly lucky. During the lecture, which was on Zoom, I couldn’t shake the exhaustion. I turned off my camera, looked at my brother, and said, “Something’s wrong,” before walking out of the classroom.
The next few hours are hazy. What I do remember is that I walked out of the classroom, my brother following in tow, and I ended up falling in a chair. Once my body hit that chair, I was essentially paralyzed. I could barely move my body, only in really slow movements almost as if all of the energy had been sucked out of me. I couldn’t talk in complete sentences and from what I was told, I was stuttering and nothing I was saying was very coherent. My brother contacted our professor who came from a different building. She cancelled class and stayed by my side through the next ordeals to come. They called the paramedics who came and checked me out.
Internal Freak-Out
Before the paramedics came, my professor warned me that they probably wouldn’t take me to the hospital since I wasn’t a Danish taxpayer. So imagine my fear when the paramedics told me that I had to go. It was the first time in my adult life that I truly understood what real fear felt like.
Once I get to the hospital, my body is still not functioning at all, so they are running almost every test possible on me trying to figure out what is wrong with me. I remember sitting in that room, still not able to function very well, thinking, “Is this it? I didn’t get to say goodbye. I don’t even have the physical ability to say goodbye to my family if I had the opportunity to.” The looks the doctors were giving me and the messages that my family were sending me were worrisome. Something seemed to be very wrong. However, after seven long hours of sitting in a hospital room slowly gaining my composure and motion back, the doctor comes in and misdiagnoses me with a concussion, so I am discharged and told to stay away from bright lights and screens.
The next day, Wednesday, I end up having to go back to the hospital because something still felt very off and not like a concussion. After getting to the hospital, the next thing I know is that I can’t move and there are at least four or five Danish nurses surrounding me, yelling in Danish as I am thinking, “I’m scared and don’t know what you are saying or what’s going on.” When the doctor finally comes into the room, the first thing I am able to tell her is “I need to see a cardiologist.” The day before, I had told the other hospital that I thought that there could be something wrong with my heart but they were dead-set that I had a concussion. However, I know my body, and I, and all the doctors in my family, felt like it was something heart-related. The doctor told me that they would refer me, but sometimes it could take upwards of six months to get in to see one. They got me in to see a cardiologist 3 weeks later. The conversations I was having with my family and my program were terrifying because they were about how I may have to go home if I end up in the hospital again. We were talking about having to put limits on my life because this arrhythmia they think I have could be life-threatening. It was crazy how in just 48 hours, my happy and care-free life took a complete 180.
Take the Jump
While there are so many details I could put in here about my last two months abroad and the waiting game that I was in, I am going to just mention that the heart monitor results (that I wore for two days while still in Denmark) ruled out an arrhythmia leading us to figuring out that I have a chronic illness called POTS that can mimic an arrhythmia. So even though I am alive and (somewhat) well today, those two months changed my life in a way that I never expected. Before October 24, 2023, I was a negative and just somewhat sad person over all. However, when I was sitting in that hospital bed, I made a promise to myself that if I survived this, I would live my life differently going forward. I would be a more positive person, I would be more willing to try new things, and I would live more freely.
Now, two years later, I see the beauty in life so much more. Tomorrow is not promised, and you truly don’t know what you’re missing out on until you lose it or think that you could. I honestly believe that starting my own company is the best possible way to keep that promise to myself I made in the hospital room two years ago. You only get one life. So to everyone who has made it this far, I say take the jump because you never know what view is waiting on the other side.