I don’t remember my first hospital
visit. Some of my earliest memories stem from when I was four—back then I
frequented the hospital so much that whenever I was admitted, the nurses
greeted me like a favorite niece. More than that, I felt like a momentary
celebrity as I walked through the double doors to my floor and was cheerfully greeted by everyone. Because I was
young, I never thought to wonder why everyone knew me when I couldn’t remember
them. It’s just the way it was. But alas, my flash of fame would vanish as I
would enter my room. Except, if you take away the IV’s and the throw-up bowls, needles,
tubes, and surgeries, it wasn’t so bad. They tried to make it kid friendly. I
even had themed sheets—like 101 Dalmatians. My most common problem was boredom.
As an inpatient, all you have to look forward to are your 3 meals.
When I was about 5 I was re-admitted. For one reason or another, I was
on a clear liquid diet. This was quite common for me. That meant I was limited
sprite, rubber Jell-O, mud vegetable broth, water, and oh yah—my wonderful IV
fluids. Basically, I felt like I was starving. As I lay there, obsessing over all
the food I could eat (it had been days since I’d had anything solid), I got a
whiff of pizza. The dad of the girl sharing the room with me had decided to be
so inconsiderate and bring PIZZA into the room with the girl who couldn’t eat.
I broke down at this point—cried to my mom, asking her why someone would do
such a thing. Mom explained that sometimes life was hard, and that her dad
wanted to be with his daughter as much as possible (even eating) because she
was dying.
***
When I was little, I used to take comfort in my yellow baby blanket. It
had stripes of pink and blue, and smelled wonderful. It smelled like home. That’s
what I really loved most about it—its aroma—which is why I hated washing it. At
one of my hospital visits, I had left my blanket behind. My dad had just
arrived at the hospital that was an hour away from my home. I told him about my
desire for my blanket, and he (amazingly) drove back home to retrieve my cherished
item. I was grateful when he returned, because I had decided I wanted to bring
my blanket in with me for my next surgery. You see, I loathed the gas masks used to put patients to sleep. Just thinking
about the mix of that smell of the plastic and the gas coming through can still
make me gag. So, the genius little girl I was, I decided to bring in my
wonderfully fragranced blanket in with me so that it could help mask the odor.
I told them how I wanted it right next to my face. To accommodate me, they cut
a hole in my blanket—right where the gas mask would go.
***
Medicine isn’t perfect, and sometimes they mess up and you get
infections where they had surgery. However, I didn’t want to have another
surgery. It all seemed quite unnecessary to me. The doctor brought me into a
room and tried to explain to me what was going to happen. She drew an “x” marks
the spot on a doll next to me so I could see where the incision and bag were
going to be placed. I inwardly cried. I thought that if I didn’t say anything
back that they wouldn’t go through with the surgery. I was wrong.
Once that surgery had “healed,” I was able to go around with a bag
attached to my abdomen. Most of the time my colostomy wasn’t hard to accept
because I was usually just with my family. There was one time, however, that I
went to the public pool with my family. As my mom was helping me with my bag
and bathing suite, another lady crushed my little girl hopes as she decided mocked
me. Why would my mom allow me to come to the pool with a bag on my abdomen?
Couldn’t we see that that was inappropriate? My mom dismissed the lady, and led
me out to the pool. I just wished I could disappear.
***
Growing up, my mom would tell me that I would be able to find someone
who loved me for who I am. I never believed her. I was destined to become a dog
lady (because cats are selfish buttheads). Because of experiences with people
like the woman at the pool, or the girl in elementary school who threatened to
pull out my catheter (simply because she was a bully), I told myself over and over
again that if people found out who I really was, they would run the other
direction. It felt like my deep, dark secret. So, when I was dating my (now)
husband, I came to the point that I cared about him so much that I couldn’t deal with the rejection at a further point.
Consequently, I decided to come clean to the entire world about my health
problems through my blog. Basically, I was spiraling. I told him to read the blog and then contact
me when he was done. In the meantime, I was in fetal position on my bed,
uncontrollably sobbing. Which is why, to
my shock, his response was, “You’re crazy, I love you.”
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