Hospice

I.

“When I was eight years old, I started to feel a severe pain in my left femur. I was very althletic as a young girl, so when I approached my Mother about it, she said it was just aches from so much running. As a trusting child, I believed her, and took comfort and refuge in her words, agreeing that she was right, because any alternative to her answer meant something was wrong with me.

All kids I'm sure know how it feels to be too embarassed to bring something up to their parents, worried how they'll react or what will happen. Because if you tell your parents there is something wrong, they'll take you to the doctor, and you will soon find that there is indeed something very wrong, and you'll wish you hadn't found out because the agony of knowing is somehow worse than staying quiet and dying from it.

I kept playing on the girls’ soccer team over the summer, and after every game, the pain would flare up worse than before, and almost drive me to tears. My Mother would prop up my leg on the couch when we got home, put an ice pad on it, and then gave me some painkillers to aid the ache.

This went on for six months before she even considered it being anything worse than it was. I felt changes happening as time went on, but never spoke up because I figured it was just another side effect of being so active. After three months, I lost my appetite. I'd sit at the table with my parents drinking their wine with their fellow rich, fancy friends and no one even noticed I hadn't eaten a thing.

Looking back on it, the eating disorder I had developed had nothing to do with the impending doom awaiting me in the coming months. But it was certainly something to be concerned about, but my parent's brushed it off. When they would notice I hadn't eaten, they would react angrily, asking me what was wrong with me until I wasn't so sure myself.

I'd tell them that I wasn't hungry and hadn't been hungry in weeks, but they would call me a liar, saying that it was impossible that a human being could go that long without eating or feeling hungry, so I fell further into my own dark world, mentally abusing myself.

I'd take showers and stand in front of the mirror, looking at my frail frame that should not belong to any eight year-old child. The ribs that protrude are easily covered with ill fitting shirts and the sharp angles of my wrist bones would be concealed with butterfly bracelets and no one had to know a thing.

I kept losing weight, and no one noticed.

Three more months passed, and the combination of my eating disorder mixed with my leg pain and other insistent symptoms finally came to a point. My parent's still didn't believe me, that is, until I woke up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder did my parents decide to take action and take me to the hospital.

The sensation was like scissors in my skin, like my bone was breaking and splintering inside of my leg. I couldn’t even get out of bed it hurt so bad. I remember the agonized wails ripping from my lungs when my Dad tried to pick me up that night. Both my parents were panicking, and I started having a panic attack.

I couldn’t breathe, then. The scissor pain seized up my chest and froze my lungs in place. Nothing moved in or out and I couldn’t cry anymore, just stare ahead as the bleak fuzzy blackness moved in around my vision.

“Silvia! Breathe!” My Mother yelled at me, getting me to focus again.

A fresh gust of air pushed into my lungs, forcing them to work again. My parents started to bicker about what to do, when my Dad shifts his hands on my back and gives my mom a weird look.

"What?" she demands anxiously.

"Silvia is boney as hell, feel this."

My mom prodded my ribs and upon further inspection realized something she'd missed for six months.

"My God, Silvia, have you been starving yourself?"

I choose not to answer, feeling angry and betrayed that they hadn't listened to me before it became a problem.

"We'll deal with that later... What are we gonna do? She's acting like it's broken."

I still had tears in my eyes and was feeling pretty pissed at them both, to be blunt. They finally agreed on a hospital visit. (reluctantly, I might add) Mom packed my things into my Barbie backpack and Dad carried me to the car carefully, and we drove there.

Except we weren’t driving to the hospital in my mind. We were driving to the end... The end of all things normal and innocent. I was about to embark on a life-long journey of fighting for my life after my condition is brought to light.

The trip was shorter than I would have liked, and before I knew it, we were in that building, where everything is white and teal and makes you feel sick to your stomach.

We went in the waiting room and took a seat. Since I wasn’t gushing blood or anything, it wasn’t urgent enough to go straight in. Mom filled out my records, and Dad kept me cradled in his arms, making sure not to disturb my left leg.

After about fifteen minutes, they called us in. We rose quickly, and followed a nurse to a room. In my terrified delirium and blurred vision, I could still make out that her uniform was covered in little cartoon teddy bears. Of all things, you know?”

I pause, and take a deep breath, feeling the nurse push the needle into my arm to begin another round of chemo. I’m sitting in this quiet little room on the second floor of the hospital. It has this great big balcony where you can see the whole town from. It’s absolutely breathtaking to look from.

“Who’d of thought that almost twenty years later I’d be telling this story to a chemo tech? I didn’t think I’d even make it to thirteen.”

The nurse smiles up at me and finishes cleaning up her workspace with an alcohol wipe.

“And now you’re on the road to recovery.” She smiles, giving me a knowing look, and I can’t help but believe in her words the way I believed my mother’s when I was eight years old.

“I hope so...”

“What have you been doing all these years?”

“I was a showgirl.” I reply fondly, smiling slightly, spotting the concern in her eyes. “Not the kind that strips and dances for the entertainment of men, no, I always wanted to be one of those old fashioned showgirls with the glittery dresses, and coodinated dances and cutesy songs. For a while, that’s what was, until the pain returned in my leg.

So the doctor finally comes into the room, and the nurse does what she can to keep us comfortable in the meantime. Here I am screaming so loud from the foreign pain that the blood vessels are breaking in my eyes. No consolation from my parents is enough to stop it.

The doctor inspected my leg, asked a lot of questions, then suggested we do a scan. I rememeber the fear and concern in my parent’s eyes when he offered it. They knew what it meant and I luckily didn’t. I was still oblivious to the terrible things in store for me.

~~~


After all the tests were complete, they placed me in a room with three other patients, all divided by sliding curtains. I could hear someone crying two beds down, but I truly did not want to know why. I shook and carried on, terrified. I hated hospitals, always have, except now they’re almost like a second home because I’m here so much.

Anyways, I sat on the foot of the bed, teal sliding curtains on all four walls around me. My parents grip my hands, their expressions worried and fretting, waiting for the news.

I watched the hands on the clock move slowly forward, counting down the seconds I had left of being a carefree kid. I remember that so clearly now, even almost twenty years later.

I kicked my right foot against the bed frame, my left leg locked in a war on plaster and gauze. It was a precautionary measure until the tests would come back, telling us if I was okay or not.

My Mom is telling my Dad all the things it could be. Suggesting a sprain or pulled muscle, nothing that ice, pain killers and a stack of Disney films wouldn't fix. My Dad nods, not because he agrees, I don't think, but because he just wants her to take comfort in something.

The curtains pull back and the doctor steps in, a clipboard containing my records in his hands. He doesn't tell us right away, but there's something in his eyes that is wrong. He suggests a trip to his office where they can speak in private.

Immediately, my parent's hands squeeze my fingers tightly in their grip. They know everything will not be okay.

I remember the panic I felt... It was terrible. I tried to hide it, but your eyes tell everything.

The doctor took some precautions by putting me in a wheelchair before wheeling me and my parents down the hall to his office. He took a seat behind his desk, fingers interlocked ontop of it, the sort of post a mastermind villain might make when he's about to break it to the hero that he's failed.

After several long, dead silent seconds, he speaks up, pushing a chart towards my parents. They lean forward and anxiously scan the paper as he speaks.

“I regret to inform you, but your daughter has cancerous tissue in her left femur. The process... Is pretty far in. We could try chemo therapy if you would like, but ah, it’s very hard on the body.”

I remember the look in my parents when they heard that. They had just been given two terrible options.

I can’t help but wonder now if thing’s might have turned out differently if they had listened to me months earlier.