With A Heavy Heart...(A Post as Raw As Mine Come)

* I am currently inpatient for infection as I write this

We were on our way there. It shouldn't be much longer than 20 minutes or so, mum was saying. 20 minutes or so felt like three exceedingly long lifetimes at that point. It felt like steak knives were being jabbed into my thigh (outer and inner) and left buttock. Every second in which I was forced to endure the pain was excruciating. I was rather frightened as I knew another 20 minutes there could have a hazardous impact on my rapidly weakening condition with cellulitis – 20 minutes was enough to go from awful condition to an absolutely nightmarish one. There was nothing else we could do as we were already in Boston, mere minutes away from the hospital. Yet, there was unexpected traffic on Sunday during an early afternoon due to a bridge somebody had decided to shut down.

I sat in the backseat of the car; my crying was incredibly heavy and persistent, accompanied by occasional shrieks stemming from a concoction of pain and frustration. In that moment, I was fighting for my survival and that was the way in which my inner warrior (or lack thereof) chose to manifest itself. My poor parents had the great misfortune of having to listen to me the entirety of the way in a cramped car (a 1979 trans am, our other, much more spacious car, was broken). It must have been an arduous task as seeing somebody you love in such unrelenting pain is a form of torture in itself. I was freezing and trembling all over, and the pain was growing worse by the instant. I didn't know how to cope in that moment. Sanity was a friend from my past that was long gone by now.

If I am being incredibly honest, I wanted to die and be freed from all my misery at that point. Please mom, I said. Pull over and just kill me. You and Dad. If you love me you'll do it. I have great trouble writing this even in this very moment, as it brings back the most horrific of memories. However, when the pain is so extraordinary and uncontrolled and your temperature is so exquisitely high, you are certainly not thinking coherently. Can you imagine what my parents must have felt though? They had been through this with me numerous times before, but never had I requested for them to kill their own daughter. Before you think me absolutely mad, please try to understand that it literally felt as though a bevy of steak knives were impeding upon the infected part of my body. Try to understand that I had a headache so prominent and painful, along with legs that felt like mush and difficulty breathing due to the exasperating infection. I was out of my mind, but with due medical reason.

We eventually arrived there, and the ER at CHB took immediate notice of my down-trodden state. They wasted no time triaging me and then getting my condition under control as my temperature was just under that of 105. On the way to the ER, I said something to my parents that I know was rather hurtful to them. At one point, someone in the car made an innocent remark in regards to my relentless shrieking and hysterical crying.

“You have no right to say anything,” I said. “This is your fault this is happening to me. You guys were the ones who did this to me.” I know what you are probably thinking. What an absolute ingrate this young woman is to have made such a malicious comment. And, admittedly, that hadn't been my first time making a comment like that during a time of medical urgency. For me to imagine you calling me an ingrate is probably somewhat mock-able, as you are probably thinking much worse of me at this moment. I get it, I truly do. Sometimes I hate myself for making comments like that, for making my parents feel as if I even think they are partially responsible for my medical condition when I know they would have never wished this upon me.

I have a big heart, I swear I do. So where do comments like that come from? I was physically sick and emotionally a wreck, but that is no excuse. In those moments, when such medical injustice is upon me, it's almost like I look for someone to blame out of anger. My parents, however, are not those people. No one is to blame, that much I know. Still, my anger got the best of me and that in itself is very dangerous. My infections will come and go, but those are the kind of words that haunt a parents forever. I sincerely wish I knew how to be a better daughter, but I don't. I am trying, though, if not somewhat aimlessly.

To parents who of children who have this condition, we know it's not your fault. We know you would change things a million times over if you could. I cannot take back the remarks I've made and the hurt in which I've cast upon my family, and that too is something in which I have to carry around with me for eternity.  - A