My thoughts? Sorry to say I'm not feeling it.

1) It seems forced to me to put her full name in there.
2) "The hospital room had become her refuge" changes tense and drops a mini-summary into the first lines.
3) "Now it was time to leave" changes tense back again and switches to a linking verb.
4) "Like a mantra" is a bit of a cliché.
5) You're not supposed to start writing until November. First lines count

I know I probably seem hard on this, but trust me, I'm 10 times harder on myself.

Hey, one thing that might help all of us who may be interested is to critique each other's openings, once NaNo starts, or when it's over.