LJ Idol Season 8: Week 36(B); Visiting Hours

A long time ago, there was an exorcism on the 13th floor. Or so that's what I was told. They said that's why the 13th button had been removed from the elevator. The entire floor had been closed off, and ever since they performed the ritual, people had never been allowed there again.

I'd always take the back elevators, the ones furthest from the front door since they weren't as busy. I'd push the floor buttons and hold my breath as we went between the 12th and 14th floor.

What if the doors had opened?

Would there be demons floating through the halls with red eyes and a desire to take over my soul? Like they did in the dreams that haunted me every night?

Would there be ghosts of the people who’d died in the hospital, making their way through the empty corridors?

If so, I wondered, would my mom join them?

For a girl of only 13, I had a lot to be afraid of. The demons on the 13th floor were just a distraction.

**********

I overheard my sister sobbing in the bathroom, "I can't tell her!"

My mom was dying.

No one had thought to tell me. She was fine. I was told that she had pneumonia, but other than that, everything was fine. She’d just had a c-section with my brother, it’s totally routine. Nothing about having a baby should kill her.

I stormed into the bathroom, my sister in tears. I screamed at her, "You’re a liar!” and "I never want to see you again!”

And I ran.

I ran into the woods around the house and sat there, crying and feeling betrayed. I cursed my baby brother who I blamed for killing my mother. My thoughts were ugly. I was losing my mind and I was terrified.

I would be an orphan. My dad had died when I was just a baby, and now I was going to lose my mom too? I felt like my whole world was falling apart.

I couldn't trust any of the adults; they'd all kept secrets from me.

Maybe she was already dead? How was I to know?

I was startled by the sound of a four-wheeler. My cousin, Timmy, had come to find me. I remember crying on his shoulder for a long time. I trusted him because he was a sort of a kid too. He talked me into forgiving my sister who really is only a few years older than myself and was doing her best to protect me.

*********

Every day after school, my step-dad would take me along on the hour drive to St. Louis. The local hospital had already wanted us to donate her organs, but he had insisted on moving her to St. Louis, to at least try to save her life.

They told him it was hopeless.

My sister kept my baby brother, and for some reason, I always went to the hospital even though I couldn’t bear to sit in the ICU and listen to the beeps and buzzers going off, watching my mom not respond to a thing. I couldn’t stand it.

So I wandered the hallways. I’d play on the elevators. Going up and down and jumping at just the right time so my head hit the ceiling. I’d go on adventures to look for the morgue, but only came across the strange sounding “Vacuum Room” which somehow, my mind perceived as being the same thing. I could only imagine what must have gone on in there. My imagination ran wild in those days.

I was only 13 after all.

**********

Six weeks after slipping into a coma, my mom woke up. The doctors called it a miracle case, one of few women who survived everything she had. The cause for her coma was her emergency c-section from rising blood pressure. This was coupled with a mitro valve prolapse induced cardiomyopathy and a virus that went to her lungs. All at once. In every way, she should be dead.

And every day, I’m thankful she’s not.

Her myriad of medications would overwhelm most people. And lately, the most terrifying part about all this is she’s lost her insurance. Several hundred dollars a month of medication that she’s unable to afford. All of which keep her alive.

She’s now deciding which ones she can wait on, which ones she can’t. What ones she can skip for a week without a problem, and which ones would be disastrous to miss a day.

She has severe osteoporosis and could break a bone by doing something as simple as walking down the steps; doesn’t matter. She’s not disabled enough for disability. Her back is arthritic, her short term memory gone because of the coma. None of it matters.

She tore some ligaments in her thumb recently, she’s been in pain for weeks and wrapping it in an Ace bandage, but nothing stops the pain. The hospital tells her to go to a doctor she can’t afford and who requires payment up front.

All those years ago, I was afraid of losing my mom. Sadly, not much has changed. Except now, I feel like it’s cruelty and carelessness to blame and not my baby brother.

I’m more scared now than I ever was at 13, and the only demons I have to worry about today are the ones deciding the fate of my mother, the politicians, the lobbyists and the insurance executives as they decide whether or not she deserves healthcare she can afford.




(This is my second of five entries for therealljidol Hell Week part two. None of these are connected, so read at your leisure. As always, thank you for reading!)