When I was a baby I used to cry all day and all night. No one knew what was wrong. My mother took me to the doctor who said, “Nothing is wrong.” So I just cried all day and night.
As I was got older, I was the person that did not eat a lot. Every day when dinner was ready, my mother forced me go to the kitchen and eat until I had finished everything. Instead of me eating, however, I would fall asleep on the table, just nodding out on the spot. That happened throughout my fourth grade year of elementary school. When I went to fifth grade, my mother took me to the doctor yet again to find out what ailed me, and again we were told, “She doesn’t have anything wrong.”
It was in the middle of my fifth grade year that I became worse. I couldn’t even get out of bed because I had an awful pain in my stomach which would only be lessened when I was lying prone in my bed. My parents, though, made me go to school. I kept telling them that I wasn’t feeling well. When I was at school I would have to go to the restroom every ten minutes and because of this the teacher gave me a special pass. But I was still feeling so bad that one day I went to the nurse’s office and had to wait for my mother to get there. I couldn’t stay at school because I felt so miserable. After my mother arrived, she took me to the doctor and, once again, they assured my mother that “she doesn’t have anything,” but they would take some x-rays. So I went to take the x-rays then went home and laid on my bed because the pain was so horrendous.
I went back to school the following day feeling much the same, only this day I began throwing up and feeling even worse. Once again my mother came and took me to the doctor. The doctor reiterated, “She doesn’t have anything wrong. Even in the x-rays shows that she doesn’t have anything.” On this occasion he added, “She is just making herself throw up because she has some mental issues.”
After that, my parents and I went to talk to the principal and counselor about my mental issue. I was in there for like ten minutes when I had to go to the restroom, but my parents and the counselor told me to sit down and that it was all in my head and nothing was physically wrong. I didn’t have an option, I rushed out. I couldn’t eat anything that had any aroma, or anything that was all mixed up. It got to a point that I just couldn’t handle the pain. Out of sheer exasperation, my parents finally took me to the hospital where they took a second set of x-rays. This time, they used more powerful rays which penetrated deeper inside my stomach. That’s when they discovered my problem.
I had stone is my pancreas which was obstructing my digestive system. They told me I needed surgery to take out the stone, but first they needed to clean out my stomach. When they cleaned out my stomach the doctors and nurses had to hold me down because they needed to put a tube inside my nose that reached all the way into my stomach. That tube was actually small, but to me, especially at that age, it was an elephant’s trunk. It took them about twenty minutes to complete the pumping. The tube experience was so awful that every time I swallowed I could feel it. It was even uncomfortable to breathe.
After that was all finished they told me they had to move me to another hospital. They took me in an ambulance to Cooks Children Hospital. The funny thing was that not even the ambulance people knew where they were going. I eventually arrived at the hospital and they took me to a room. In the morning, I still had the tube, which they told me I would have for at least one more day. I wasn’t able to drink or eat before my surgery because I had the tube. On the day of my surgery, I remember going to a room and just watching TV. Then, when I opened my eyes, I was back in my room again.
I was not able to move because my stomach had been cut; four tiny incisions on the right side of the body. It really hurt. In the afternoon, they made the walk down the hallway. The next day I was able to eat! I had a really big appetite. I had missed many meals and was determined to get them all back at once. Ever since my surgery, I have been eating normally and have recovered one hundred percent. Instead of me sitting in the kitchen and falling asleep, I now eat everything that my mom makes. Now she says, “Estas Seguro de Hacer comer mucho.” In English that means, “You sure do eat a lot.” I always remind her of back in the day, “remember all those days I didn’t eat well?”
It is true that none of us knows how long we have on this earth. Therefore, it surely follows that we also don’t know which meal might be our last, so we might as well make sure that it is one in which we enjoy.