(no subject)
Maybe Angels
= An Odd Number of Stars
+ Grape #1 [In the name of Science]
+ Whipped Cream
+ Cherry
+ Gummies [Origfic June Bingo: (Ghosts/Afterlife/Haunting)]
+ Malt [Back to School Challenge Reward #11: Anya : what you are, what you've meant to me]
Turns out all the doctors were wrong. I didn’t have any internal organ failures, even though I was born prematurely.
Anya reflects on science's contribution to her character
Character: Anya Words: 1102
Everyone dies all the time: when you were born, when I was born, when my brother was born, someone somewhere took that last shuddering breath. Or perhaps they faded away in their sleep, with no chance to say goodbye. Or they felt that tiny squeeze in their brain before the lost all feeling all together, collapsing on the ground as a lifeless heap. Wherever the monitor stopped giving off that regular, monotonous sound, someone died the second you gasped for breath the first time. It’s a weird thought, huh? While they puffed out the last bit of life that’s left, you swallowed it, willing to try out this new thing called Life.
I’m sure you’ve thought of that before. Or perhaps you were exceptionally cheerful and optimistic and never even thought of that. I bet a lot of people hate you, huh? Have you ever seen anyone for this chronic optimism? It can get dangerous. Yes, even fatal. I would see a trained specialist before anything happens.
Anyway, what I was trying to say was that whereas everyone (except you) has had this thought once or twice in their lives, no one has had to deal with it. Well, except me.
Okay, so I admit I’m over-exaggerating a bit. My Dad didn’t die the day I was born: he died thirty six hours before. My mother went into earlier labour due to shock when they told her he died. So there: that’s how I was born. Because my Dad died.
I think my whole life was doomed: I was conceived the night before my father went back into hospital (I don’t ever want to think of that again) and the doctors believed to see some sort of heart or internal organ failures from the very first ultra-sounds. To be honest, under normal circumstances my parents, like any other normal couple, would have considered abortion. Obviously they didn’t because my dad was in hospital with a sporadic and inconsistent heart beats due to the seven holes in his heart.
The doctors didn’t think it was genetic: they didn’t warn my mother about this specific malady. They told her about all the kidney malfunctions and the heart diseases and the susceptibility to diseases, to my weak immune system and how I was the child to inherit every single medical malfunction in the world. My Mom couldn’t listen to that though: I was the last thing she had that belonged to my Dad, who was fading, so she clung to me.
Turns out all the doctors were wrong. I didn’t have any internal organ failures, even though I was born prematurely. After I survived the two weeks in intensive care with my mother, in black, sitting beside me, mourning over my father as she warned me not to die too. When I came out of that little incubator alive, they told my mother that my only problem was three holes in my heart.
My mother didn’t know what to do. I was this tiny, constant reminder of my father as I lay there, in my crib, my heart already malfunctioning to the extent of danger. But she was a good mother; she took care of me and my brother, nurturing us. She quit her job until we were old enough to go to school. She always told me that’s because she wanted to be here for us, but I always think it’s because she thought she only had limited time with me. Our constant visits to the Emergency Room and the doctor’s office meant that when I was eleven my mother and my doctor, Dr. Monroe, married. Most people in my familial circle thought it was cute, but my mother and I just got scared for the little being in her womb. He didn’t survive; I was almost relieved.
Almost. I had named him already. He was so tiny, with fingernails and a heart beat, and yet I had named him. I named him Riley and I knew I would be an amazing older sister, regardless of his little heart. I would nurse him and nickname him Rilo and bathe him and baby sit him while my parents went out. That never happened though
Dr. Monroe asked me once how I had not long given up on the hospital, since they had so often failed to help me. They had left me so weak and fragile while they desperately tried to piece me together again. He asked me why I was even still here, with him, when I knew there was so little he could do to fix me without tearing me apart first. How can you trust me this much? He asked me, tearing up. I hugged him.
Don’t you see? I asked him. I am me because I am a fragile child; I grew up in the hospital among the nurses and the doctors. I can speak medical jargon like a second year medical student and I know that every doctor in this building would dive in front of a bullet for me. They’re all trying. Dr Monroe started crying.
The next day he bought me an electric guitar. It was red and white and looked so nice. What is this? I asked him.
We found you that replacement kidney. And because you’ll be spending sometime in the hospital I thought I’d give you something to do while you healed.
I was so excited. For the first time in my life, I had something to look forward to (other than never having to go to dialysis again) after my operation.
When I woke up I was in pain and couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think properly what was that did someone say something I can’t breathe what’s going on Dr. Monroe where’s my mother can I please have something to drink I can’t breathe it hurts so much make it go away I need something can I have some water it hurts can I sleep it hurts to much to sleep please go away I want to feel better I hate this place can I play my guitar yet?
When I woke up he taught me how to play the guitar. We had to steal cushions so that it wasn’t leaning on my bruises and I was put into a private room so I could go crazy with the music while I suddenly realised that despite the fact that people were dying and that my father and brother died around me, I was still alive, and just because my heart controlled me shouldn’t mean that I should live with one foot in the grave.
= An Odd Number of Stars
+ Grape #1 [In the name of Science]
+ Whipped Cream
+ Cherry
+ Gummies [Origfic June Bingo: (Ghosts/Afterlife/Haunting)]
+ Malt [Back to School Challenge Reward #11: Anya : what you are, what you've meant to me]
Turns out all the doctors were wrong. I didn’t have any internal organ failures, even though I was born prematurely.
Anya reflects on science's contribution to her character
Character: Anya Words: 1102
Everyone dies all the time: when you were born, when I was born, when my brother was born, someone somewhere took that last shuddering breath. Or perhaps they faded away in their sleep, with no chance to say goodbye. Or they felt that tiny squeeze in their brain before the lost all feeling all together, collapsing on the ground as a lifeless heap. Wherever the monitor stopped giving off that regular, monotonous sound, someone died the second you gasped for breath the first time. It’s a weird thought, huh? While they puffed out the last bit of life that’s left, you swallowed it, willing to try out this new thing called Life.
I’m sure you’ve thought of that before. Or perhaps you were exceptionally cheerful and optimistic and never even thought of that. I bet a lot of people hate you, huh? Have you ever seen anyone for this chronic optimism? It can get dangerous. Yes, even fatal. I would see a trained specialist before anything happens.
Anyway, what I was trying to say was that whereas everyone (except you) has had this thought once or twice in their lives, no one has had to deal with it. Well, except me.
Okay, so I admit I’m over-exaggerating a bit. My Dad didn’t die the day I was born: he died thirty six hours before. My mother went into earlier labour due to shock when they told her he died. So there: that’s how I was born. Because my Dad died.
I think my whole life was doomed: I was conceived the night before my father went back into hospital (I don’t ever want to think of that again) and the doctors believed to see some sort of heart or internal organ failures from the very first ultra-sounds. To be honest, under normal circumstances my parents, like any other normal couple, would have considered abortion. Obviously they didn’t because my dad was in hospital with a sporadic and inconsistent heart beats due to the seven holes in his heart.
The doctors didn’t think it was genetic: they didn’t warn my mother about this specific malady. They told her about all the kidney malfunctions and the heart diseases and the susceptibility to diseases, to my weak immune system and how I was the child to inherit every single medical malfunction in the world. My Mom couldn’t listen to that though: I was the last thing she had that belonged to my Dad, who was fading, so she clung to me.
Turns out all the doctors were wrong. I didn’t have any internal organ failures, even though I was born prematurely. After I survived the two weeks in intensive care with my mother, in black, sitting beside me, mourning over my father as she warned me not to die too. When I came out of that little incubator alive, they told my mother that my only problem was three holes in my heart.
My mother didn’t know what to do. I was this tiny, constant reminder of my father as I lay there, in my crib, my heart already malfunctioning to the extent of danger. But she was a good mother; she took care of me and my brother, nurturing us. She quit her job until we were old enough to go to school. She always told me that’s because she wanted to be here for us, but I always think it’s because she thought she only had limited time with me. Our constant visits to the Emergency Room and the doctor’s office meant that when I was eleven my mother and my doctor, Dr. Monroe, married. Most people in my familial circle thought it was cute, but my mother and I just got scared for the little being in her womb. He didn’t survive; I was almost relieved.
Almost. I had named him already. He was so tiny, with fingernails and a heart beat, and yet I had named him. I named him Riley and I knew I would be an amazing older sister, regardless of his little heart. I would nurse him and nickname him Rilo and bathe him and baby sit him while my parents went out. That never happened though
Dr. Monroe asked me once how I had not long given up on the hospital, since they had so often failed to help me. They had left me so weak and fragile while they desperately tried to piece me together again. He asked me why I was even still here, with him, when I knew there was so little he could do to fix me without tearing me apart first. How can you trust me this much? He asked me, tearing up. I hugged him.
Don’t you see? I asked him. I am me because I am a fragile child; I grew up in the hospital among the nurses and the doctors. I can speak medical jargon like a second year medical student and I know that every doctor in this building would dive in front of a bullet for me. They’re all trying. Dr Monroe started crying.
The next day he bought me an electric guitar. It was red and white and looked so nice. What is this? I asked him.
We found you that replacement kidney. And because you’ll be spending sometime in the hospital I thought I’d give you something to do while you healed.
I was so excited. For the first time in my life, I had something to look forward to (other than never having to go to dialysis again) after my operation.
When I woke up I was in pain and couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think properly what was that did someone say something I can’t breathe what’s going on Dr. Monroe where’s my mother can I please have something to drink I can’t breathe it hurts so much make it go away I need something can I have some water it hurts can I sleep it hurts to much to sleep please go away I want to feel better I hate this place can I play my guitar yet?
When I woke up he taught me how to play the guitar. We had to steal cushions so that it wasn’t leaning on my bruises and I was put into a private room so I could go crazy with the music while I suddenly realised that despite the fact that people were dying and that my father and brother died around me, I was still alive, and just because my heart controlled me shouldn’t mean that I should live with one foot in the grave.