Fretting the Small Stuff

Pain in a Paragraph - Part II

The street light barely illuminated my childhood bedroom enough to see the outline of my hand.  I sat up in bed, feeling the warmth inside my mouth.  After wiping my face, the dark crimson blood looked like ink on the towel.  Banging on the wall, my parents ran in just in time to find their youngest child spew fresh blood from her mouth, much like a cliche movie scene in a third rate horror movie.  Then, as we raced to the emergency room, I slowed my breathing and tried to meditate knowing this would decrease my heart rate and thereby decrease the loss of blood.  A short hour later, I felt the intubation tube slide down my throat as I fell into a deep slumber.   And now, an even tighter scar sits where my right tonsil once was. 

Pain in a Paragraph

Barely clothed, cold, and in pain, the sixth medical resident walked into my room for yet another exam.   I trembled and begged: No more!   Moments earlier a kind young doctor with her hair pulled back and a gentle smile on her face performed my first ever "that kind" of examination.  A nurse held my hand as tears formed in my eyes and I tried to be brave.  At age fourteen, virgin flesh protected me from the probing and prodding I had never felt before.  Six hours later, I awoke with no appendix.