The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness


What is the purpose of life? Life existed for hundreds of millenniums but the question of "what are we supposed to do with our lives" was never answered. Everyone has different viewpoints on the subject; the president of the United States would argue that we need to make a difference, while the genetic scientists may argue that we need to reproduce. The most important aspect of life is that we have a connection to our surroundings, and from those feelings, we are able to change our emotions and modify our thoughts. Ultimately, the most wonderful part of those feelings is the act of enjoyment, and that is why I believe that the most important aspect of life is to enjoy it. I did not come to this conclusion until only recently. I remember lying on the bed of a dark and gloomy room inside a hospital hundreds of miles away from home. The nurse handed me papers to write my will on in case something drastic happened. I thought, what really have I done with my life?

I have had severe bleeding problems since I was a child. My mother used to tell me that when I was just a baby, there was a time when I would spontaneously bleed on my skin or get bruises all over my body including my face for no reason. I have always had an autoimmune disease called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, ITP for short. What those words mean is basically that my body kills my own platelets (which are the parts of the blood that clogs to stop bleeding), and the doctors know nothing of how to treat it (that is what idiopathic means). However, it is uncertain exactly how I got it or how long I have had it, or maybe it went away. The doctors do not know and neither do I.

I moved to the United States when I was ten years old and faced a brand new clash of cultures and influences. Throughout my middle school and high school years I worked really hard. Being an immigrant, it was hard for me to learn a new language, let alone a whole new culture and everything else in between. I struggled to catch up to people in terms of not only language, but also the other aspects like math or science. Still, my illness did not act up again. I would probably bleed once in a while, but since it was so common, I was used to it, and I did not even care about it anymore.

In 2008, my college year hit and I was sent from Colorado to Illinois to continue my education. The place was nice other than the fact I was alone, and I even turned into a vegetarian just for kicks. Unfortunately, the moment did not last long. The day before Halloween, I spontaneously started pouring blood out of both my nostrils and it lasted for more than fourteen hours. I lost so much blood my lips were pale and body was cold. The bloody papers I threw in the toilet even made people think that maybe some one was murdered. My friend told me that maybe I should go see a doctor, and I thought to myself, "maybe I should."

I went to a small clinic close to my dorm, and saw a doctor who suggested for me to get a complete blood comprehensive panel (CBC for short). The results came in later that night. It turns out that the average platelet count inside one liter of human blood should be from 150,000 to 350,000; mine was 22,000, which was well below the danger zone. The doctor told me that I need to try not to move so much (since movement creates bleeding), and come back to the clinic tomorrow to check again in case it was just an outlier. The next day I went back to the hospital and got my blood checked and realized it was indeed an outlier the day before. The silly thing was because it was Halloween, the doctors and nurses all seemed eager to get out of the place so they did not even read my numbers correctly. "Oh look, it's 20,000 today, that dropped by 2,000. You should probably go to the emergency room." So I did, after giving one of my friends a call and he picked me up.

Once I was admitted to the hospital's emergency room, things changed much to my surprise. After seeing my papers and numbers, the doctors went mad. They immediately put me in intensive care and several doctors came in asking me questions, giving me shots, and the nurse drew so much blood of out me, I felt faint. I asked them what was going on because obviously this is a lot more serious than I thought, and one of the doctors showed me that the number on the paper, "See here? This number is your platelet count, 2,000." Two thousand platelets in one liter of blood, that's less than 1% of the normal count. According to the doctors, I was really lucky to have even survived my car trip to the hospital, and that really, at any moment, it was very possible for me to spontaneously bleed into my brain and die. I was shocked. The doctors rolled my bed carefully from place to place doing all sorts of tests with large machines to make sure I did not have intense bleeding already (since I would not have been able to feel it or heal it), but other than my abdomen muscles bleeding, my skin bruised all over, everything else looked fine.

They put me on many IVs with all sorts of treatments and blood transfusion and that is when the nurse stepped into my room and gave me the paperwork to write a will. I chuckled a little bit at first, but then I saw the look in the nurse's eyes and it was stern and serious. I then sat there in my bed alone, finally realizing what was going on, that I may die at any moment.

Tears started dripping from my eyes, however; it was not because I wanted to live longer. I looked back on the 18 short years that I lived in, and thought about what I did with my life. I saw the most beautiful pictures, the most fantastic moments. I remembered how my mother would close the blinds in my room because I wanted to sleep in and the sunlight was hitting my face. I remembered how when my father left for the US when I was six, he hugged me and cried and told me that he would work really hard to get both me and my mom to the United States. I remembered the parties I would host for my friends in high school and all of them having a wonderful time and saying that I was the best cook ever. I remembered when I gave a speech to 500 people in a large auditorium in Dayton, Ohio, all of them clapping and whistling and cheering in the end. I looked back upon my life and realized that I loved my life, and it loved me back. I did not want to abandon the people I knew, and leave them only grief and sorrow. I wanted to continue living for everyone and spread happiness upon them all. So I did.

A few days later, I went back to my home in Colorado with my parents and I have been recovering there ever since. I still reflect on the moment when I sat in that large and gloomy room, thinking about my past, but now, I think about my future, and what my illness has taught me: I have lived a beautiful life, a wonderful life, in a world full of a vibrant group of people called the human beings. We are able to live life because it makes us alive, and because of that, we should enjoy every second of it.