Fragmented Essay

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”