I am not these Diseases

The school nurse brought my dad, who was a teacher at the parochial school I attended, into the nurse's office. There was a female classmate of mine in the nurse's office too. She was skinny too. I found out later that she suffered from anorexia. I was slouching in a chair nearby; tired, hungry, and thirsty. "Mr. Fox," the school nurse said, "You need to take your daughter to a doctor right away." My father didn't say anything, as a child of a physically and verbally abusive alcoholic father, he didn't usually react strongly or quickly to much in life. It was safer to stay in the shadows, but in the bright lights of her office, there was no where for him to hide.

He called my mother at work and later that afternoon, she brought me to the clinic in town where they drew my blood. The woman with the large needle, who did it, said, "Your blood is very dark." I looked at her, not understanding anything that was happening to me, although my eight-year-old self knew I was very sick. I was quickly hospitalized with a Juvenile Diabetes diagnosis. There was a rush of activity. There was a girl in the room I was given, she was twelve or thirteen with heavy bandages on her wrists. It was an unsuccessful suicide attempt. I didn't know that at the time, my mother clued me about this, as she had several conversations with the girl's mother while I was there.

A nurse brought in a glass of something for me to drink. I sipped it and it tasted like vomit. The nurse informed me that I had to drink a dozen glasses of it a day to raise my potassium levels. They couldn't release me from the hospital until the levels were normal. I wondered to myself what normal meant, and I wondered out loud if they might add some orange juice to this horrible tasting drink. The staff had a meeting and it was decided that would be alright. I start gulping it down because I wanted to get the hell out of there. I had no idea that they were concerned my heart would stop.

I thought about how this all started. It was at my grandmother's funeral, my dad's mother. I had heard in whispers from extended family members how abusive my grandfather was, in addition to his boozing escapades. I never met him, he died before I was born. My father and his siblings, all thirteen of them, rolled in kegs of beer at my grandmother's house. One of them exclaimed, "Ma woulda wanted us to celebrate!" This little girl knew that was total bullshit. Alcohol had only ruined her life. My grandmother inherited a little money from her parents and consulted the parish priest about getting a divorce from her ne'er-do-well, whoring, abusive husband and was readily told she would go to hell if she did, so she didn't. I wish that priest had been honest with her and said instead, "It sounds like you are already in it."

It was a month or two after that day, I started vomiting. I threw up until only bile came up. I had a fever, I only know this because it was summer, and my older sister was taking care of me, while my parents worked. I was lying in bed, crying. My sister peeked her head into the room with a puzzled look on her face. "What are you laughing about?" She asked. I was baffled at the time. As an adult, I believe this was my first glimpse into the transience of emotions. I'm sure I was delirious with fever. Laughter and tears utilize the same set of muscles in the body, after all.

In the hospital, my first-grade teacher, Sister Ruth, visited me and gave me a silver necklace of the Virgin Mary and Father Dunne visited me, performing last rites. I called my mother at work, in tears, asking her what they weren't telling me... very compassionately, my mother explained that this rite is also called the Anointing of the Sick. I hung up, mostly believing her. I have three brothers and a sister, all much older. I was the "accident," my father would tease. My mother visited me before and after work. My father never visited. Later in life, some thirty-eight years after the fact, I confronted him about it but he said he didn't remember. I knew him well enough to know that he was hiding from this trauma, just like he would hide in the woods when his father was at home, terrorizing everyone. I didn't let him out that easy. I asked, "What do you think an eight girl thinks when her father doesn't visit her in the hospital?" He didn't say anything. I responded, "He doesn't care whether I live or die." He burst into tears and begged me to forgive him. I did... but this trauma still bites very hard.

Flash forward fifteen years to my college years at the University of Minnesota. At that time, no one graduated from there in four years, it was more like five to fifteen. I turned out to be one of the latter. Classes were huge. The weather sucked. Lots of students either transferred or dropped out altogether. When I was nineteen, I met my soulmate at work, a part-time telephone market research gig. He was twenty-one. We had that storybook romance with all the feels. We were soon living together near campus, as we both struggled to finish undergraduate degrees. It was cold that February. I started to have blurry vision in my left eye, then in a week or so, my legs got numb and my left knee started to buckle when I walked.

I went to the University clinic and next thing I knew, there was a gaggle of medical students staring into my eye and pricking my legs with needles as they asked what felt like a million questions.

Again, I was hospitalized. They gave me IV Steroids, which made me feel like a super-hero, until I left the hospital and felt like I had been run-over by a truck. As I was discharging, a nurse was reading a bunch of things when she casually slipped in, "Diagnosis is MS probable."

"What?" I screamed. She apologized that this was the first time I was hearing this, and this was after the nursing staff gave me a sucrose drip with the IV Steroids, instead of saline, like the hospital neurologist had ordered. Steroids, whether they oral or IV, dramatically elevate blood glucose levels. Once the nurses realized their potentially deadly error, they popped into my room and asked me how I felt and I quipped, "I'm in the fucking hospital, how do you think I feel?" This was after the lumbar puncture or spinal tap, the MRI that didn't show anything definitive and this time, parents who didn't visit because they were wintering in Florida. I didn't get upset about this though because I had plane tickets to go visit them in a month and I was determined to not let this rule my life.

A year later, another MRI would confirm an MS diagnoses. I went to Europe on student loan money with a girlfriend from college for two months, trying not to think about it. Later, at the market research firm where I worked, a girl I went to high school with, who also had juvenile diabetes, came into the office for a research study on that topic and we spent about an hour catching up in my office. She seemed impressed that I had a job as a Project Manager and was sad to hear I had MS too. When she left, I was struck by how much she seemed to be living her disease. "Her docs, her diabetes, etc.

I remember when the neurologist called me to confirm the diagnosis, I exclaimed, "What are the fucking chances someone would have both juvenile diabetes and multiple sclerosis?" She informed me that it was fair from rare, unfortunately. Now, autoimmune diseases, which these both are, are diagnosed more frequently than cancer. I try not let these diseases and that constant fear they induce, define who I am and who I will become. I am a writer and a filmmaker. I'm still with that guy I fell for thirty years ago, now we're married too.