First, let me introduce myself.

OK, so until recently I thought I had no story interesting enough to share with the world. Not that I am a boring person, not at all! Just that every day me going through life happily and carefree doesn't make a good tale to tell!

Now however, in the past months and weeks a lot has happened to make me want to get out a little and talk about what has happened, will happen, and may yet happen in the future. I suppose that's better reading material, although I am still no less happy and carefree!

My name is Megan, I am 22 and live in Manitoba, Canada. Actually will be 23 in 3 weeks. I am married since August last year and have 3 cats (plus one who we took in off the street and have yet to find a home for... I'm a sucker for cats!)

I work a casual job at a daycare where I get fewer hours than I would like, but that's no big deal. I like to spend the time off reading Terry Goodkind and Laurell K Hamilton books, exploring the fabulous Internet and travelling, generally spending time outside (in nice weather that is).

When I think back on what I was doing this time last year, I had been working at a gym and started taking the steps to get into teaching fitness classes, started running, then moved to hiking as work took us West to more mountainous places. After being just recently married, J and I were excited to pack up our kitties and head out for work in Alberta and enjoy living out that way for awhile. Unfortunately that only lasted 4 months before a random hospital visit and subsequent 3 1/2 week hospital stay sent us home to Manitoba earlier than we ever wanted.

Let me explain: I have always had headaches. Since age 7 I have known what a migrane was. Then in May of 07 I had the mother of all headaches and went into the hospital, knowing it was NOT a normal thing, this was something different, something bigger. However J and I were the only ones who believed this, and the massive blood clot in my brain was not discovered until much, much later.

Fast forward to December 08. (A few weeks after my 22nd birthday, yes it is hard to believe it hasn't even been a year yet.) J and I decided to spend his day off work in Medicine Hat, although I felt miserable after a particularly bad headache - now the blood clot that had at that point still not been found, and had caused me an awful headache every day for the past year and a half... fun! So we went to Medicine Hat, I felt sick and stayed in our truck most of the time, and even ended up rolling down the window while driving a few times to get sick out the window. Bleh! We decided to stay the night in a hotel in case I was still sick the next day, since the way home was nearly 2 hours away.

Next morning: Still sick, so we rushed to the hospital and sat in the walk in clinic which was surprisingly quick, told the Dr that I had a headache, throwing up, all that jazz, and were actually sent to emergency. Why, I wondered? But I felt too sick to ask questions. Good thing we got to Emergency quickly, because we sat and waited about 15 minutes and I started to black out. I got up and wove my way to the nurses' desk and told them, I need to get in NOW, or I won't be conscious. They got me in. For me though, walking down the hallway to see the doctor is all I can remember, because after that point it all went black. J was there though and said the Dr's had seen this before and thought they knew what was going on. I was quickly hooked up with a Heparin drip and sent for an MRI, where they found the old blood clot as well as a nice big new one, and I was lucky to have made it before anything worse happened. Unfortunately though things were going to get worse before they got any better.

I believe though, that this is long enough for tonight. Thank you, anyone, for reading a bit of my story!