Of the first night, I only remember when one
of the nurses looked at me and she had this weird expression on her face. It
wasn’t really fear but something else. Maybe it was pity or something similar.
Anyways, I will always remember her face over mine, looking down on me. I felt
I was already on the hole to be buried. You tend to get very dramatic when
you’re sick. And that was the first time I was really sick. Doctors would tell
me, months later, that I could have died.
It was the fever that prevented me from
remembering anything from that first day. But as time went by, I started
remembering more and more things. For example, I know for a fact that on the
second day, a male nurse came and stared at me for several minutes. I think he
thought I was asleep or in a coma or something. I knew he was there because of
his reflection on the window. It was very creepy. Maybe he did something to
patients or something. I would know about it later.
They gave me actual food only a week after I
had entered the hospital. Before that everything had to get in me through an
IV. I felt miserable, weak and fearful that so many things could happen. I was
scared they would discover something in me that might mean then end of my life.
I thought that stay in the hospital would be the death o f me and, again, I don’t think you can blame someone for being
overdramatic in a hospital. Awful things happen in those places every day.
Luckily, with time, I was able to recuperate.
It wasn’t fast at all but at least not every single bone in my body was aching.
The pain started to go away and I was just so grateful that it was all coming
to an end. I felt it was going to be going on for many more weeks but
thankfully it didn’t. They did not discover anything strange, rather the opposite.
What they did tell me was that I wasn’t eating well and that I should be trying
to eat more regularly and more types of food.
True, I had been neglecting my meals before
getting sick. I had lost any interest in food or in anything that wasn’t going
to give me what I really needed in life. I became obsessed with achieving one
goal and it was then when I became ill and couldn’t even continue achieving
that goal. I wanted to be successful and finally prove myself and others that I
was worth something. That drive lasted shortly, as my stay in the hospital just
changed everything for me. I didn’t do what to do, again. I was confused and
relieved at the same time, it was pretty confusing.
One month after leaving the hospital, I had to
go back for a check up. They wanted to verify everything was ok. I had all the
time needed because my ambition had been cut short and now I had no idea what
to do, how to proceed. Unfortunately, I fainted in the waiting room, just as
the doctor was preparing to receive me. They laid my body on a stretcher and
gave me something so I could sleep for a couple of hours. Somehow, they knew I
hadn’t been able to do it by myself for weeks.
That time, they did found out that I had some
sort of disease, a condition as they said. It’s very difficult to explain what
it is and the name is even stranger but the point is that thing makes me weaker
as time goes by. It has been inside me for a long time and now it will live in
me forever until my death, which might be caused by it. Not directly but the
weaknesses my body have will enable diseases and other awful stuff to just come
through and attack my body in the easiest way.
I was put in a room again and stayed in the
hospital for a couple of days. I remember I cried a lot that time, because I
felt I finally knew when and where I was going to die. Of course, I didn’t know
for sure but it was pretty obvious that I would have to deal with something
that most people have no idea about. If I had ever wanted to go back and try
again l my failed attempts to be successful, with those news it seemed my world
had ended and there was no way to turn it back on.
I didn’t know what to do. When I saw my
parents checking the prices of the pills I would have to take for life, I felt
even more like a leech, useless and pathetic. I can recognize that I thought
about killing myself but my body or something else wouldn’t let me. I found
myself to feel not only weak but empty. I had nothing left inside and couldn’t
even fathom the possibility of feeling anything ever again. I was in my lowest
point ever and only a miracle could save me.
And
it did. As it happens, I had been taking pictures and putting them online, for
several years actually. I had many followers but they rarely commented. One of
them was the male nurse that stood by my bed that time I got sick. I ran into
him this one time, when I went for another check up. He reunited the courage to
tell me he was a huge fan of mine and that he would love if I accepted to have
coffee or something with him. Feeling so down, I said yes only to keep walking
and reach my doctor’s office. I even gave him my cellphone number.
Days later, he called and told me he could go
near my house if I preferred. The point is, he is the most charming person in
the world. We have been talking for a few months now and I think his interest
and original take on everything that is happening to me, helps a lot in making
me feel less sick of myself and more proud of the few things I’ve done. He
makes me feel good when we’re together and that’s the best. He likes to hold my
hands a lot and hugging me is a apparently a hobby for him.
My disease is still there though and sometimes
I can almost feel it moving through me. I feel like a bomb about to go off but
no one knows exactly when, not me, not the doctors, not my family. But one day.
The important thing is, it’s now right now and that’s something.
