Sophomore Year Playlist
- Home By Now - Bombay Bicycle Club
- Someday - The Strokes
- Hard to Find - Robot Koch
- Il viaggio d'inverno - Ludovico Einaudi
- Blood - The Middle East
- Obsessions - Marina and the Diamonds
- Ritornare - Ludovico Einaudi
- IV. Sweatpants - Childish Gambino
- Recover - CHVRCHES
- Monument - Royksopp ft. Robyn
- Quesadilla - Walk the Moon
- Flawless*** (Remix) - Beyoncé ft. Nicki Minaj
- Ghost - Bombay Bicycle Club
- For the first song, I chose "Home By Now" by Bombay Bicycle Club for a couple of reasons. Bombay Bicycle Club is my favorite band, and I was able to see them in concert at the start of last summer. Also, I felt that the title was fitting - returning to UC in August of 2014 felt like finally coming home. I had been impatiently waiting the entire summer for the day I would finally be back on campus, where I really felt like I was at home, surrounded by friends and people that felt like family.
- I chose "Someday" by The Strokes, another one of my favorite bands. This was to symbolize a couple of things: first, that I had been anticipating the return to UC for so long that my expectations were impossibly high; second, that I quickly realized that my second year wasn't going to be nearly as easy or as fun as the first. As a kind of coping mechanism, I would always try to be looking forward to something, which is why I think the title of this song is fitting.
- "Hard to Find" found its way onto this playlist because it's my go-to song when I need to calm down. It symbolizes the time in fall semester when I really began to struggle. It felt like nothing was going right. I was trying to balance dealing with physical illness, falling out with people I had to spend a lot of time with, arguments within a close-knit leadership development group, and the return of my severe anxiety that hadn't been a problem since I was 16.
- "Il viaggio d'inverno" is an incredible piano and violin duet by one of my favorite composers, Ludovico Einaudi. The name means, literally, "the voyage of winter", or the winter journey. Winter was an especially difficult season for me. I was in a lot of physical pain that my doctor deemed was endometriosis, and I was scheduled to undergo a simple diagnostic surgery to determine if I really had it. The pain made it difficult for me to go to class and get through schoolwork. I dropped from 18 credit hours down to 12 and got my first ever C as a final grade after failing an exam.
- "Blood" by The Middle East. The worst thing that has ever happened to me happened this year. I went into my minor surgery, expecting to be back in classes within a week after a quick and smooth recovery. However, my surgeon nicked my small intestine in two places, didn't realize it, stitched me back up, and sent me home. I had a hard time walking, and some pain, but that's normal after a minor surgery. A couple of hours after I got home, however, I found myself in absolutely excruciating pain. At the time, I would've said it was a 10 on the pain scale, but that was before I knew what true pain felt like.
My mom took me to the ER, and I was put in a curtained area. The narcotics they gave me to control the pain, for some reason, caused an awful spike in pain that made me feel like my insides were on fire. I couldn't stop screaming except to breathe or sob. I couldn't move. Finally, FINALLY, after three doses of something I may have been allergic to, my nurse made the decision to switch me to a different painkiller. I underwent a CT scan, which was inconclusive. My nurse decided to admit me overnight. My night nurses in my new room were unsure about if I needed to stay, wanting the pain to subside before they made any decisions. but there was talk of releasing me the next day. I was prohibited from eating or drinking at all, instead receiving hydration and nutrients from an IV.
However, I showed no signs of improvement the next morning. The nurses decided that it would be okay for me to have clear fluids, like apple juice and jello. Later in the day, I was progressed to soft solids like ice cream and applesauce. This was a horrible mistake.
The next day, a doctor who ran a practice with the doctor that performed my surgery came in to check on me, and ordered another CT scan. This time, the scan was extremely difficult because my lungs were collapsing and I couldn't breathe, and in order to get a clear image the patient is supposed to hold their breath in 5- and 10-second intervals. The second scan was also inconclusive, but there seemed to be fluid in my abdomen. My boyfriend, Luke, came from UC to visit and spent the day with me. It was a Sunday night, so he had to return to work the next day, and he left in the late evening. Half an hour after he left, a team of surgeons and nurses came in and told me I would have to undergo emergency surgery. They needed to look for damage to my intestines. They didn't tell me anything about the procedure, or what it would be like in recovery, or what I could expect. They just rushed me in as fast as they could. I don't remember the operating room or falling asleep, but I remember waking up in recovery and feeling something scratch the back of my throat. I asked the nurse about it, and she said "It's probably because you have a tube down your nose going to your stomach." Like I was supposed to know.
A nurse wheeled me to my new room on the post-surgical intensive care floor. At this point, it was probably 2 or 3 in the morning. I tried to examine myself. There were tubes and needles sticking out of me everywhere I looked. I had the tube down my nose to my stomach, which suctioned out bile and deposited it into a container next to my bed; I had a catheter in, connected to a bag at the end of my bed; I had an IV in my arm, which connected to a few different bags on a stand next to me; I had a tube coming out of an incision in my side that suctioned fluid from the anastomosis area and collected it in a grenade-shaped bulb pinned to my hospital gown; I had a sensor monitoring my oxygen levels on my finger; and I had sensors on my chest and shoulders that connected to a walkie-talkie-like device that sat in my pocket, transmitting information about my heart rate and breathing to the nurses' station.
I was in the hospital for a week and a half, the hardest time of my life. I was told I couldn't return to school for a month. I was constantly crying and having anxiety attacks, and I couldn't walk more than a few feet. I couldn't go more than half an hour without having to take morphine, and sometimes I needed extra because the pain was so bad. My lungs were still partially collapsed, and they were at a third of the capacity a healthy person's should be. Sometimes I had particularly rude nurses who would warn each other that I "cried a lot", or nurses who would give me injections without warning, just stabbing them into my stomach.
It was never supposed to happen to me, and that's what I struggled the most with. One doctor's unruly scalpel took a whole semester away from me. When I was able to go home, the severe anxiety continued. I couldn't sleep at night. I could barely walk. A trip up the stairs sometimes took me 10 minutes. I was constantly in a state of so much stress that my body started to shut down and I felt like I would have rather died than gone through this.
Today, I am in therapy. I have been in therapy for the past two months, and I will continue indefinitely. When I was first evaluated, I had a mental distress level five times the level of the average person. I have severe anxiety, and symptoms highly consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. I am constantly triggered by things that remind me of my experience, even just little everyday things like waiting rooms or noises that sound like the hospital. I had to withdraw from 4 out of 5 classes I was taking last semester, putting me behind on my track to graduation. I am still living with the trauma of what happened to me. - I feel like "Obsessions" by Marina and the Diamonds is a perfect song for the next phase in my year. It is a song written by the singer about her struggle with anxiety. After the surgery, I was left with a lot of trauma and anxiety. It is always reassuring to me that even famous singers struggle with anxiety and similar invisible disabilities. It's kind of like a friendly wave and a "Hey, you're not alone".
- "Ritornare" means "return" or "come back". I chose this song because it symbolizes my return to my "regular life": I was back on campus, back in classes, and trying to return to normalcy. I also liked this song choice because the title is in Italian and it's by an Italian composer. I was president of the Italian club, but had to step down around this time because of my medical issues. At one point, I was even planning on getting a certificate in Italian Language and Culture, but unfortunately, it is no longer an option.
- To symbolize a longing to return to life as normal, I chose "IV. Sweatpants" by Childish Gambino. It conveys the carefree and confident vibe I desperately wanted to be able to have again. I think, at this point, I decided that I wanted things to be better. I was tired of bad things happening to me. It was time to turn things around. This was the point I made a call to Counseling and Psychological Services and started going to therapy.
- "Recover" by CHVRCHES is next on my list for its upbeat sound and title. The process of recovery for me has been long and brutal, but finally taking the first step was huge. I think it's one of the most important things I've ever done in the journey of self-care and putting myself above everything else. I realized that I didn't deserve to be in so much pain all the time, and sometimes realizing that you want change is the hardest part.
- I chose "Monument" because the lyrics speak of leaving something behind once you are gone. This is meaningful to me, because at this point in my life, I'm really thinking about the impact I want to leave. Not too long ago, I could have died. I thought I was going to. I wished I had. I know now that I'm not done living, and I have so much left to do. People say that life is precious, but I think it's something you can't really believe until you've been close to dying.
- "Quesadilla" is on this list because Walk the Moon is not only great, but they're from Cincinnati, and I saw them live freshman year at Red and Black Bash. It's just a feel-good and happy song, reminiscent of simpler days. Four months ago, I wouldn't have been able to listen to this, but I feel good enough about my life and my recovery now that I am able to enjoy it as much as I once did.
- You've gotta have Beyoncé on any playlist. It's a really feel-good, inspiring, and empowering song, by a couple of awesome women of color.
- I'm ending the playlist with one of my all-time favorite songs, "Ghost", by my all-time favorite band, Bombay Bicycle Club. It doesn't really mean anything except that I'm happy now. I'm finally starting to do better, and I can finally start to look forward to a full and rich life again.