I'm gonna include some background info, because it might be useful to someone who is going through what I'm going through.
I have what's called Dysautonomia. It's an autonomic nervous system disorder, and it basically causes me to pass out at random. For seven years, I was treated for a heart condition (usually either POTS or Vasovagal Syncope; no one seemed to know for sure). It was about as effective as putting a bandaid over a gunshot wound. It was frustrating, going through all these heart tests and having the results come back normal, eegs came back normal, but I was still fainting. I finally was able to find a cardiologist who told me that although my heart is affected by it, it's not the source of my fainting episodes, which is how I found out I have Dysautonomia. I started all new medications, and it worked for a while, but then it stopped working suddenly and I proceeded to get worse. Turns out, my capillaries are shot, and no amount of medication is going to work unless my capillaries are strengthened. I'm currently on a leave of absence from school in order to seek further treatment. I started this boot treatment in March, and I finish in the end of June. So far, it seems to be working.
If you are, or someone you know is suffering from a heart condition that causes them to spontaneously faint, I strongly suggest looking into it possibly being an ANS disorder. It's worth it.

Anyway, I've been trying to think of clever ways to see my SO before January, because after 3 years, I just wanna kiss his face and smuggle him home in my luggage and I wanna do that like, yesterday. I remembered my parents bought a timeshare, and have two weeks of vacation time. They only ever use the one week, I asked them if I could use one of the weeks to go to London with a friend of mine. I was told I needed to get clearance from my cardiologist first.

So yesterday at my treatment, I asked my doctor about it. He told me that as long as my treatments are done, I will be safe enough to travel. There's a good chance I'll actually be in the process of coming off all my medication. I relayed the news to my parents, and now it looks like I'm hopefully gonna be going to London come the end of August!

My SO is currently in New Castle, so he'd be staying with a friend in London for the week I'm there. My parents aren't aware (yet) that I'm back together with my SO, but my friend knows, and she's all for this trip to London. She's excited to meet him, too, because she's been there since the very beginning. I feel like this is a great option for a first meeting, because it's more or less neutral territory. And, if it doesn't click for whatever reason, he can go home and I'll still have my friend with me for the remainder of the week.

I'm feeling spoiled, for one, but I'm also feeling really excited now. Our original plan was to have the first meeting be in January, but now I have this opportunity to see him so much sooner. I told my SO this idea before I got my doctor's OK, and he's super excited as well. We've been talking about it daily. He's determined to get me to at least try haggis, but I'm not sure I'm strong enough for that one just yet... :|

I'm so excited, though. It's all I can think about.