Chapter 4: It's alright ma, I'm only bleeding*

* Warning:  this gets graphic/medical issues

So as the popular girls dropped one by one.
I grew stronger (both physically and mentally).
I'm sure the reputation of the cheerleading team diminished some...but we also rose in the provincial rankings dramatically!
I would like to say I grew into being a leader on the team.
Coach Pete taught me the value of hard work...he taught me that the trophies are won in practice and the competition was merely for picking up the hardware (trophies).
I was no longer the tape winder or sideline/substitute girl.
It was a slow and steady improvement and took a lot of sweat.
It got to the point that after fall tryouts we would meet Coach Pete to discuss our opinions of who should/should not make the team.
It was amazing.

I would say that there was a core four of us that got really close.
Jules, Cammy, River and I.
We would ride to competitions together...share a super fun drives to University Nationals to cheer on our own Coach Pete (who won Nationals EVERY year he competed-we were lucky to have such a great coach).
I remember discussing with Cammy and River virginity.
That's right I guess I'm really not going to hold back.
I was a panickier and always thought of worse case scenario (though I would NEVER imagine a scenario that actually ended up occurring).
I remember talking to them who both had boyfriends (Cammy's stoner boyfriend) at the time and were considering doing "it".
I was adamantly against it (even though it really had nothing to do with me).
I remembered all the points we discussed in 9th Grade health class.
I was like you could get an STD! You could get Pregnant! You could get an STD AND PREGNANT!
What if your parents found out?!
What if your boyfriend broke up with you after?!
It was pretty much a bad situation (from my 16 year old perspective).

Cammy and River were more worried about options for birth control etc.
I didn't see it coming...I thought okay....seriously it is hard to you tampons and a penis has got to be more like at least width of a sausage (obviously I had not seen an actual penis is real life at this point).
How would that EVER fit in there?!
And it had to hurt!  All the teen magazines said it hurt and didn't feel good the first few times.
And there can be blood?  Would the boy find that gross?  How much blood were they talking about exactly?
All and all it sounded like a bad idea.
I remember thinking too ....wow how could these girls really think about doing this.
So first River lost her V-card (what we called our Virginity).
I do have to say she was responsible about it.
She went to the woman's clinic downtown to get free birth control.
The clinic didn't tell your parents and you could get physicals and STD checking at no cost.
She said it doing "it" was okay and was getting better but more importantly her boyfriend really liked to hang out with her way more.  (Hmmm I wonder why...oh well we all make our decision at some point I guess).

I remember a car ride home with just Cammy one time and I was like "I'm kind of mad a River after all that discussion and she goes and does "it" like its no big deal.  And its still totally risky behaviour."
Cammy was just talking with me and based on our conversation I thought she definitely didn't want to take the same route as River.

So later that month (it was November) and we had a half day at school for professional development for the teachers.  I was going home to study for a test and I dropped off Cammy and her boyfriend at his house (which was like 2 blocks away from my house).

About an hour later I get a phone call ...its Cammy and she is crying.
Cammy: "You're going to be so mad at me"
Me: "huh...what?  What's going on Cammy?"
Cammy:  "I had sex and something is wrong?"
Me:  "what ...what is going on...its hard to hear you...do you have the faucet on?"
Cammy: "Okay so today we were going to have sex for the 2nd time...and we did and it was okay and I mean I bleed the first time but I'm really bleeding now...and I think I should go to the woman's clinic can you come get me".
Me: "yea of course I'll be right there"
Cammy:  "Teagan this is really embarrassing but I need you to bring me like tampons and a pads and underwear because mine is ruined and bloody"
Me:  "no problem"

So I grab some things and head right there.  She looks all pale and NOT good.  So I give her the things she puts them on and a pair of splash pants (wind pants with cotton liner on) and we head out. 
Cammy:  "Teagan I'm bleeding really bad"
Me: "so should we call an ambulance? or go to hospital?" 
Cammy: "No lets go to the woman's clinic I feel better going there."

So we drive (downtown is like 15/20minutes away).
When she gets out of the car she had bleed through tampon, 3 pads, underwear and splash pants onto the car seat...like bright red blood.
I sucked in a breath...this was a bad bad situation.
We walked in and she went straight to the bathroom.
I fill in paperwork and am holding her ID and the nurse is like take a seat.
I lost it...I burst into tears "we cannot take a seat...my best friend is dying...she is bleeding so much and is in the bathroom and she is terrified".
So the nurse follows me to the bathroom and Cammy is on the toilet and it sounds like she is peeing but she isn't.
They rush her to a room and call an ambulance and the doctor starts to literally pack her with rolled up gauze.  She is crying and apologizing that I have to see her vagina...I'm like "look this is no big deal" and I'm holding her hand  and trying not to cry in front of her.  Ambulance gets there and takes her to the hospital and I follow the ambulance in my car so that we have a ride home (because at this point I still think we can keep this underwraps from her parents).

At the hospital I learned the laws you see she was 15 which means they have to call her parents.
At 16 they don't have to.  Her birthday was in 8 days unfortunately.
The intake nurse gave me the option to call her parents and I was like "heck no!  You please do it".
I just sat with her and waited for her parents to come.
Her boyfriend arrived first and I said to him "maybe you shouldn't be here when her parents get here."
Her parents arrived and they were so upset and I remember her mom crying and trying to give me gas money for driving Cammy to the hospital and I was like I can't take this.
River came to the hospital then and we went to eat something and wait to find out what happened to Cammy.
We stopped at a drugstore and bought her magazines and candy and lipgloss and things to try and make her feel better.  From what I can remember they just diagnosed her with spontaneous hemorrhaging.  They gave her an IV and ended up sending her home.  Oh yea and no sex for 8 weeks.  I though her parents were going to have a heart attack when the doctors said that.
I remember too because we had a cheerleading competition the following week and she couldn't get medical clearance to participate.
It must have been so difficult for her to watch us compete without her...and hard for us to.
I remember the little 9th grader that took her spot (and her uniform) shaking from the pressure to basically try and fill in for the star of our team.  Thank goodness it was an early competition and didn't have too much bearing on our provincial/national standings. 
That whole experience made me TERRIFIED of sex.  Needless to say ...I never had sex in high school period.  And from that point on we were very very close.

My birthday was like a week later...Cammy got me underwear.
We both laughed until we had tears in our eyes and gave each other a big hug.

To be continued...and back to the Ex's specifically

Chapter 3: I will dare*

So before I actually continue with the boy drama.
So you can skip on through if you just want to hear about the boys...straight to Chapter 5 :)
I think I want to expand more on my friendship with Cammy and my experience with cheerleading in high school...because I think it has something to do with my relationships.  You see a lot of what I learned from relationships and other things came from me watching Cammy go through it first.  You see we got closer and closer as the years went by in high school.

During our first year on the cheerleading team together she was good...she was a star!
She picked things up faster then anyone else.
She was a natural...I on the other hand was not.
I didn't compete my entire first year until the last competition of the season.
When they would run routines I would literally wind the tape to the perfect spot, practice all my substitution roles along side and memorize everyones counts and positions.
Cammy only sat out the first competition before she had a staring role...top of the pyramid of course.
Our friendship was slow to start...but forged strong none the less.
Like I said before I was NOT a natural but I loved the sport (and no I'm not going to argue with anyone about the fact on if it is a sport or not).

The cheerleading team was a tough thing in my first year.
Getting braces that year certainly did not help the matter.
Though it was undergoing a huge change with the coaching and the new discipline there still was a decent carry over of the "popular" girls...the ones that made the uniforms look great.
They were mean and viscious.
I remember they were not happy that some band nerd had made the team and I wasn't even that great (I know this had to bother them immensely).  I'm so glad I stuck it out though because being on that team changed my life...heck it changed my soul and who I was.

How difficult was it?  I think it is much harder to be a chick than a dude.
Boys can scrap throw a few punches and be done with it.
Well girls cut with looks, words and attitude...and they can cut straight to the bone.
There was a handful of girls and one in particular.  Jaimilyn.
She was AWFUL. 
She used to say to me after EVERY single practice (I don't know why I took this bullying for so long)
"We don't know how you got on this team.  We don't WANT you on this team.  In fact no one wants you here...you should quit".
I would just take it and a swallow it like a jagged little pill. (shout out to my Canadian girl Alanis haha).
I would take it in silence and then I would go home and cry.
I would never cry in front of them.
I would go home and cry and then dry my tears and then do double what we did at practice.
Yup if that day we did 50 push ups and 50 situps then I would do 100 push ups and 100 situps (not in a row all the time but I finished that number before I went to bed).
I would practice the dances and motions until I could do them in my sleep.
If there was optional training in tumbling I took the class. 
You get the idea.

I stuck through that for a whole year.
I remember with a cold hard reality what it was like to go to the year end party at the captain's house Amanda.  We were all watching the video from provincials together on her big screen TV.
All of a sudden the video changed to inside one of the rooms...and Jaimilyn.
She went into an impression of me "Look at me I'm Teagan...I love cheerleading so much that I will take all the crap of the team...I didn't get to actually compete until the last competition of the season and I thought it was the greatest...you know what would be the greatest if I dropped dead."
The silence in the room was deafining. 
I remember stammering "ummm I better go now".
Running upstairs I could hear someone say "that was cold Jaimilyn".
I ran the whole way home.

Over that summer our coach Pete made things even more disciplined.
We had summer practices at parks and the beach (running in the sand is so NOT glamorous).
The more disciplined and seriously athletic it got the faster the "popular" girls dropped like flies.
And finally in the September of my 11th grade.
Jaimilyn's bad attitude finally caught up with her.
She missed two practiced (not acceptible with our new solid disciplinary rules).
And when coach Pete asked what was up she answered him with "who the f*ck are you?!"
And that was the day she was kicked off the team :)
It was a great day for me.

Cheerleading really changed who I was.
I learned how to set goals and accomplish them.
I realized from how horrible Jaimilyn treated me that I would never do that to another teammate.
I loved our team so much.
I had my dad sponser us custom duffel bags.
We welcomed rookies on to the team with famous sleepovers and barbeques at my house.
We became a family.
And Cammy was my best friend on the team.
We grew really close especially during my 11th grade her 10th grade year.

How close?  Well it would take one trip to the ER under really scary circumstances to find out how close we would be.

To be continued...
Teagan