The Never Ending Year                        

            I took a moment to breathe once I heard the news. “He was what?” my dad said pressing the phone to his cheek, his eyes tearing up. He rushed out to the car and my mom and I followed him waiting to find out what was happening. My heart beating fast and my head filled with so many different thoughts. We get into the car and my dad informed us that my brother had been in car accident and that he was being rushed to Children’s Hospital. My heart stopped beating as I heard the news. When I hear of a car accident, I think the worse. Death.

 I will never forget anything about that day. I was wearing my “OC” t-shirt while the traffic report played softly in the background, my mind just thinking endless thoughts. What if I’m an only child now? What will he look like when I see him? Is he going to be paralyzed for the rest of his life? I had to take deep breaths to calm myself down. No one spoke in the car on the way over. Everyone was distraught and still.

We rushed into the hospital; the nurses told us “Room Nine.” We went in to see him attached to every piece of technology imaginable. IV’s running in and out of every vein in his body, metal beds arranged in an L shape; tears started to trickle down my face just looking at him. The first thing he said to my mom was “They had to cut my favorite shirt.” It lightened up the mood, as my mom smiled, chuckled and assured him that was the least of her worries. Tears just started to come down my face more and more. The way he looked, lost and fragile, is not a word anyone would ever use to describe my brother. He is always the spunky, lively one in our family, always making people laugh. My sob being to diminish when the doctors informed us that he was able to come home that night. He had severe whiplash and neck and back injuries. I had just finished my first week of high school. What a good beginning to my freshman year.

While my brother was suffering his own pains, I was also suffering mine. “Stomach pains and burning, bad lower back pains, nausea…” I said to another doctor. Over the past three months, my mom had taken me to about fifteen doctors all of whom said different things. She has fibromyalgia, lupus, mono… none of which were correct. I had memorized my symptoms by then, there was always the same question, “Paris, explain to me exactly what you feel?” I always said the same thing, but always got different answers.

It was hard enough being a freshman in high school, but not feeling well everyday just made it harder. I don’t recount attending a full day of freshmen year due to countless number of medical appointments.

 “Well Paris, I think that we should do two blood tests, and check to see if you have lupus,” the doctor said joyfully while thinking that no other doctor had thought of that before.

 “She doesn’t,” my mom said knowing that the last doctor we had gone to just tested me for that.

“Are you sure,” he said “her symptoms are pretty similar to lupus.”

 “I’m sure,” my mom exclaimed, “there have been two doctors who have said that and tested her for that.”

“Ok,” he mumbled. “Well, I think we should do a MRI to see if she has a bulging or ruptured disk in her back.”

We left the office with an appointment for an MRI and more frustration and mystery as to what was causing me to not feel well.

I woke up the next day for school, feeling nauseous and immobile. My mom rushed in to make sure I was up. I complained to her how my body couldn’t even get out of bed. My mom agreed to let me sleep in for first period and to see how I felt after. I thanked her and I closed my eyes to fall asleep. My mind drifted off wondering when I was going to like Berkeley High.  I felt lonely there and it depressed me. I wondered when I was going to feel comfortable like my brother was. I wondered when I was going to make good friends like my brother has. Life is going so well for him. He’s smart, good at baseball, has a girlfriend and I am stuck with no friends and an undiagnosed sickness. I couldn’t help but compare myself to him. I so badly wanted to have the freshmen year he had. My eyes started tearing up trying to release some of my frustration. My impatience had taken over and I wanted to be living the freshmen year that movies depict and people describe.

“Paris, it will happen,” my brother always repeated, “it takes time.”

My brother has always been there for me ever since I was little he always makes me feel calm with his soothing voice. He’s always there reassuring me that everything is going to be ok. When my grandma died in the seventh grade, all I could think about was how much I missed her. He looked at me and said, “Everything is going to be ok, she is happier now.” I toke a deep breath and let him hold me tight. He’s always there for me and always makes me feel better.

            My emotional thoughts brought me back from my slumber. I lied awake in bed thinking, then looked at the clock and realized I had wandered off into a deep sleep, not waking up until 12:30. I went downstairs to my mom’s office wondering what time it was. I felt like I had been asleep for eight days and that I could sleep for six days more.

“What time is it?” I said, my voice still groggy.

“It’s 12:30, I didn’t want to wake you, you needed that rest and we have an appointment with Dr. Lester at 2,” she said sympathetically.

I couldn’t believe what my life had turned into. Doctor’s appointments filling my weeks, never feeling well, I just wanted the freshmen year everyone else seemed to be having. 

            Gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, MRI’s, osteopaths, acupuncturists, psychic healers, pediatricians, and back specialists… the list was endless. I was one big experiment of Eastern medicine versus Western. I hated the needles, the cold machines, blank stares and the thought that no one could pinpoint what was wrong.

            I overhear my mom sobbing on the phone. “Pancreatic cancer, that couldn’t be.” I pressed my head to the door trying to figure out what was making my mom so upset. After her being on the phone for hours of hours, she came out of her room. Dry tears stuck to her face as she blew her nose. My brother, dad and I rushed to her.

“Laur, what happened?” My dad asked, all of us waiting anxiously for her response.

“Uncle Mike has stage four pancreatic cancer.” She started to weep again as soon as she told us. She went back into her room and my dad followed her. My brother and I waited outside the door not knowing how to feel. Soon after, my brother and I asked my parents if we could come in. They opened the door and we all sat on the bed silently. My mom told us how the doctors found out he had cancer and how they were going to start chemotherapy right away. My uncle had not been feeling well for a long time but pancreatic cancer is hard to detect. While the doctor finally made the diagnosis she explained my uncle was already at stage four.  Sadly, my mom said we should finish our homework and that she and my dad needed to talk by themselves.

            The next couple weeks went by in a blur. My mom picked me up after school for my psychic healer appointment. I slept in the car on the way over my body crying out with so many aches and pains. I woke up in a residential neighborhood, parked in front of her home. I already began to question this women’s profession.

            We walked into her makeshift waiting area, which was supposed to be her living room. She told us to come into her office (a bedroom in her case). She began to ask me all these personal questions such as: What are your deepest fears? Do your parents fight a lot? Do you get along with your brother? None of these questions related to my health, I looked at my mom speechless so used to saying “back pains, stomach problems, nausea…” I proceeded slowly to tell her about my family and soon after I heard myself telling her all about my deepest fears.

“I’m scared of my family dying and that I will be the only one left, I worry about a lot of things that I think other kids don’t think about.  I feel I almost lost my brother, my uncle is incredibly sick and soon it will extend to my parents.”

“Would you call yourself paranoid?”  “No”, I responded quickly, “fearful but not paranoid.”

She began to press parts of my body that were extremely painful. While she was working on me, she was trying to have me release emotions particularly anger. This was one of the most uncomfortable things I ever had to go through. Parts of it seemed to work because I was so mad at my mom for bringing me there, that it actually felt liberating. I will never see her again and I believe that nothing positive came of it.

We were back to the beginning, but this time my pediatrician recommended his close friend, a gastroenterologist. It took many weeks for me to get an appointment but we finally set one up. May 17th, I still remember that day.

That morning my mom and I went to her office that was all the way in Walnut Creek. I couldn’t help but be pessimistic at this point, all these different doctors and none with an answer.

“There is no point of driving out all this way Mom, you know that she probably won’t know what I have either,” I said frustrated.

“You never know, I am going to keep setting up these appointments until some doctor diagnoses what you have,” she said optimistically.

We finally get to Dr. Schmidt’s office, park and walk up the cement stairs. At least this doctor had an actual office building so I couldn’t completely write her off. We walked into her waiting area, I told the receptionist my name. I looked around the waiting room; the walls filled with merits and award all having them relate to gastro neurology. I began to slowly become more optimistic. Dr. Schmidt came out and called my name, my mom and I walked in to her office with optimism.

“So Paris, what are some of your symptoms?” she asked

“Nauseous, back pains, headaches, stomach problems,” I responded

“Headaches, huh? Do you ever get bad joint pains besides in your back? Like knees, wrists, ankles…?” she said seeming to have a solution in mind.

“Knees” I responded quickly knowing exactly what she was talking about.

            Her interrogative process went on, and soon enough she gave me an appointment slip for more tests and said she would call us if she found anything.

            My mom and I walked down the cement steps disappointed that our optimistic attitudes didn’t get us a diagnoses.

            Two weeks later, we get a phone call from Dr. Schmidt.

            “Hello,” I said answering the phone.

            “Hi is this Paris” I assured her it was “Hi this is Dr. Schmidt calling with your test results,” she said.

            I got nervous waiting for my results, she continued to say what the tests had shown, “You appear to have Blastocytosis, which is a highly prevalent single celled parasite that infects the gastrointestinal tract of humans. So now I have a medicine to get rid of the parasite in your body, is your mom around?” Dr. Schmidt said.

            I ran to get my mom, my body filled with so much relief and excitement. I handed my mom the phone while mouthing that they had found out what I had. I ran to get my brother and dad while my mom spoke to Dr. Schmidt about the parasite. My brother, dad, mom and I were all in my mom’s office so excited to know that someone had finally found it.

I lay down. “Ahhhh!!!!!” I said sighing relief.

That was it. No more gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, MRI’s, osteopaths, acupuncturists, psychic healers, pediatricians, and back specialists. That was the end, and I was so happy to start the beginning. Sophomore year.