At Least I've Got My Health

People say “At least you’ve got your health” like it’s a good thing. They don’t know. Nobody knows. Because I’ve always kept it to myself. Sure, I like being healthy. I like being able to get up and walk or run at the drop of a hat, and I like feeling good. That’s not the problem. And it’s not like there’s really anything wrong. It’s just that I don’t feel safe out here in the real world. I mean, anything can happen, at any time. I look around at the world, and all I see are puppets in a massive play. None of us are in control. No one knows how this all works. We find ourselves here, and at some point, we consciously try to direct the way our lives are going, but we are just skin bags, full of bones and tissue, vulnerable and easily disrupted. So many things can bring us to our knees, hurt us, kill us, or make us sick. The Gods of this world are the doctors and nurses, the mechanics of the human body. Those who are brave enough to lay hands on another for the purposes of healing, subjecting themselves to the pain of failure and loss, they are the ones I feel safest around.

           I’m not like them, though. I don’t like to see the blood, and I can’t handle other people’s puke and pain. I’ve never been good with those things, even when my kids were small. I dealt with them, sure, but I was always on the verge of panic, and nobody knew except me. I kept it all inside. I was stronger then. No, the Gods of this world are not like me, they enjoy every part of the human condition. They exult in finding a body in acute distress, so they can exercise their amazing ability to bring it back to complete functionality. It’s like a game to them, you know? But it’s not a game to me.

I’m sure it all started with my first injury as a child. It was serious, with burns over most of my body, and the authorities blamed it on my mother, taking me away from her. So, I spent the majority of my childhood in the hospital, most of it undergoing extensive surgeries to create enough room in my skin to allow me to grow. The “Peppermint Patties” nurses and their helpers were my Mothers, and the doctors were my Fathers. They were attached to me because of my grit in the face of such horrific circumstances, and they all spoiled me with attention and treats.

After I healed enough to leave the hospital, I was placed with a foster family, my first one. There were many after that, but none of them could handle the fact that I was fragile, and needed constant surgeries just to grow. More than one family rejected me on sight, my extensive scarring making it hard for them to look at me, but none of the families treated me as well as the doctors and nurses at the hospital, and in between my many surgeries, I longed to be back there, where I was appreciated and understood.

Soon after I turned twelve, I had my final plastic surgery. It was the last one in a series that was performed on my hand, transferring tendons, so I could bend my fingers. I was nearly thirteen by the time I had my last follow-up appointment, and I couldn’t explain the relief I felt stepping into the doctor’s office, after months out in the regular world. I had heard the foster mother complaining to her friends on the phone about my attitude, and how she felt it was just the beginning of my teenage years. I didn’t stay at that home long enough for her to realize what the problem really was. It was a form of withdrawal from a world where I felt safe, and I had run out of ways to get my fix.

I don’t know when I began to consciously engineer reasons to visit the doctor, they seemed like random issues at first, things I couldn’t have possibly controlled. Like a cold, or an ear infection. Or like a dislocated elbow at age fourteen. No one thought I had done that on purpose, least of all, me. It had been a nasty fall from a second-floor balcony, after leaning against a faulty railing. I remember the sharpness of my fear before I was taken to the doctor, and how it literally disappeared as soon as my guardian carried me inside the hospital. There was still pain; when they splinted my arm to put me in the car when they took it off, and when they arranged it to take the x-rays. The pain was the thing I could handle and contain, but the fear was something else entirely. Inside the hospital, even when I was in pain, I felt no fear, but outside, the fear all but consumed me.

So, it was no surprise, really, that subconsciously, I would contrive to have regular injuries, which would require me to visit the building where I felt most safe. Everyone that knew me, knew about my “awkwardness”, even going so far as to nickname me “Grace”, usually said with an exaggerated ironic tone. I’d had more injuries than all of them put together, and I think it was the serious and obviously accidental first one that had them all fooled. They all really thought that what kept happening to me, was only random bad luck. But I secretly envied my friend Kyle, who had liver cancer, and was admitted frequently for dialysis. I visited him faithfully and stayed as long as visiting hours allowed. Everyone thought I was an incredible friend, but I knew the truth and kept it to myself. Do you know what a burden it is to keep all that locked inside? Well, I do, and yet, I know not how to release it. But I digress.

It was only a matter of time before I was caught, with forensics being the new frontier that it is. Someone was bound to realize that I had zigged when I should have zagged and that I had done it on purpose. I knew this and tried hard to resist the urge to let myself get hurt. Often I succeeded for months, but during this time the fear would mount until the people in my life began to notice it. I would get edgy and irritable, snapping at, and then avoiding everyone because I knew how I looked, and couldn’t control it. Even alone, at home, the fear kept me in my pajamas, and only the necessary errands could make me venture forth. I would begin to have nightmares and would stay awake to escape them, adding sleep deprivation to the mix. It was in this state of mind that my injuries would occur. I would usually make up some story about how it had happened, and if I stuck pretty close to the truth, I could usually get away with it, because I chose situations on purpose for their accidental properties.

Like the one time, I let a car hit me in the crosswalk. It was edging out into traffic, waiting to take a right on a red light. I knew the driver hadn’t seen me, and it was a perfect opportunity, so I took it. I kept walking and he gunned it. I rolled up onto the hood and hit the windshield, and broke my arm and shoulder. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital, and I had to stay overnight for observation if I had a concussion or internal injuries. My relief as soon as the EMT touched me was so overwhelming, despite the pain I was in, I actually fell asleep on the way to the hospital, and they almost shocked me, thinking that I had coded. I was that relaxed. The feeling lasted until I was discharged, and they rolled me out the door in a wheelchair, forced me out the door, and dumped me outside like yesterday’s garbage. At least, that’s how it felt to me. And it made me angry, I mean really mad. But there was no one to take it out on. Technically, I was well enough to go home. The problem was, I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel safe there and now, there wasn’t anywhere I could go, that felt as safe. Unless I hurt myself again…