Phantom Pains

It always starts out the same.

I enter the room wearing my pajamas, my eyes staring down at my feet with each step. I've just left the bathroom and I stop almost as soon as I leave it. The place that I'm at will be my home for the next three days, although I will never call it my room. Slowly my eyes raise from my feet upwards and the first thing I notice are the walls and the sickly off white color. Next comes the tray sitting at the end of the bed with the Styrofoam cup filled with water. I know this because I slowly head over and take a sip from a straw. The bed is immaculate, but lacking any of the magic that my bed at home holds which causes me to jump on top. The window a little ways across from the bed shows the sun shining down on the water and the cars passing on the highway below me. The room has a stylish feeling to it, but is overshadowed by the odor that can only be attributed to hospitals and pill bottles. A TV hangs from the wall but I ignore it. I sigh and walk over to my bag where I proceed to reach in and grab a book. I never seem to see the title, but I know it's The Phantom of the Opera.

While flipping through the pages my feet shuffle my body back to the bed. I flop down, one leg under me, the other hanging over the edge of the bed. I immediately regret this action as pain lances through my head and I have to close my eyes to shut out the light in hopes it will help. Suddenly the slight humming of the air vents seems too loud, the odor permeating the room is too strong, and the sun shining so prettily is my causing the pain to increase. Every noise, every spectral of light is too strong and as I sit there I can feel it increasing and increasing and -

"Hello! I'm Marilyn."

Glancing up, the woman who's just interrupted my train of thought and pain, which thankfully has lowered. If it was due to her or just my imagination that the pain was getting worse I won't know. That's just what everyone would want to hear me say out loud anyway, that I was just imagining it all.

"Now I just have a few questions for you. You are here to receive the D.H.E. drip correct?"

"Yes. I've had the pain for a week now."

"Alright, on a scale of 1-10 where's the pain at?"

On the inside I want to say "Oh, I'd say about a 50, but that's more than 10 isn't it? It's a lot and I've been dealing with it for a week, so let's skip past the formalities hmm?", but instead I just flick my eyes out the window and mutter "A 9, maybe 9 and a half."

A few more seemingly inane questions later and I'm about ready to rip my hair out if that wouldn't increase the pain I'm in. I start to wonder what is taking my mother so long that she would leave me with this woman who smiles too much and keeps calling me honey.

"Well, now that we have that done, I'm going to get your IV all set up OK?"

"No."

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you honey, what did you say?"

"I said no. I don't want the IV."

"In order to have your medication you need the IV. Now I know it hurts a little, but-"

At that point I tune her out and curl into myself. A little? A LITTLE? The needle pinches my skin and causes my hand to loose feeling due to the fact that I can't move my fingers without feeling said needle in my hand, which means I won't move my hand for pretty much the whole time I'm there. A sick feeling creeps through my stomach as I see the glint of the needle out of the corner of my eye. It's not the needle I'm most afraid of, even though I would like to run as far away as possible from that sharp object. Momma will never have to worry about me wanting a tattoo, that's for sure.

No, it's the medicine that, while helping to relieve my immense and almost indescribable pain, is it's own form of torture. It burns as it goes in and then burns as it spreads through my hand and up my arm. Over the next few days I'll lose my appetite and won't want to eat anything other than ice chips or jello. Then the pain and stiffness in my joints and muscles will begin and won't abate until at least 3 days after I leave. Any time I try to get up, the dizzy feeling will return and my stomach will threaten to toss what little I've thrown down there.

The nurse is still giving me reasons why I need to "let" her poke my hand when I feel close to breaking.

"I don't want the IV and that's final. No, nada, nein, whatever language helps best NO."

She stops mid-step and stares at me, face still stuck in a smile. Then the smile slowly slips away and I see the true feelings behind the facade all nurses now seem to wear around me. She's had a crap day and I'm the last straw. Soon she'll snap herself out of whatever she really wants to say to me and attempt yet again to get me to take the IV.

But anything else that might've been said is lost as my mother has finally appeared in the doorway. Looking tired, her eyes flick back and forth between the nurse and myself.

"Hi there, I'm Suzanne's mother. Is something wrong?"

A look of triumph appears behind her eyes and without skipping a beat she turns and says "Well, a little. Your daughter is acting belligerent and won't allow me to insert the IV. She is adamant that she doesn't want the medicine."

I whip my head up so fast I should have felt pain, but instead all I can focus on is the anger. Who is she to put words in my mouth? I don't like needles, I don't like IVs, but I never said I wouldn't take the medicine damn it! My anger apparently does the trick as my mother responds with "Give us a minute will you?"

The nurse attempts to open her mouth again when my mother states "Before coming here, we just went the the memorial of her friend who passed away from cancer." Pausing she gives a mother bear expression and then continues with "Give us a minute will you?"

Shame spreads across the lady-who-would-be-my-fake-best-friend. She mumbles something along the lines of "Of course" and leaves without moving or taking any of her supplies. My mother sits on the bed next to me and puts her arm around my shoulders. I automatically lean into her and put my head on her shoulder as she starts to lightly rub my head.

"Do you really not want the medicine that much? It's going to help you know."

"I want the medicine, I never said I didn't. She lied. I don't want the IV. "

"Is it the IV? Or is it Daniel?"

I don't respond and just clutch my book tighter to my chest.

"Suzie? Come on, let me know what's going on inside that brain of yours."

I still don't respond, but this time tears run down my cheeks and my chest heaves as I begin to sob and shudder with pain that has nothing to do with a migraine.

Then I wake up.

I was sixteen, almost seventeen when I lost Daniel. He was my oddball friend, the one who shared my issues with ADD, watched random SciFi movies with me, and the one I sent books to and vice versa. He was the one who understood my love of ballet even though I was only taking the lessons for fun, he was the one who I could have seen as a professional dancer with scores of girls screaming his name. After all, as he always told me, there has to be some perks to be one of the only straight men in ballet. He had made me jewelry for my sixteenth birthday and had bought my precious copy of The Phantom of the Opera. He knew how much I loved the musical and told me I should read the book and tell him if it was truly something or if the musical was better.

He had been in remission, then the cancer had returned with a vengeance and a prediction of 4-6 months left of life to look forward to. He left this world in January a little bit before his sixteenth birthday, which may be why I keep having this dream.

For the past week this memory, for this is a memory, has been plaguing my dreams almost every other night. I don't know why as I've worked through my grief  over losing him. I had, for some reason, decided to act completely out of character that day. In high school I was plagued with constant debilitating migraines that would keep me out of school for days or even weeks at a time. It wasn't unusual for me to have to head to Chicago for a weekend treatment that would finally cut the migraine. Normally I was very helpful as my thinking was "Well, if it stops the pain, drug me up. I'll deal with the aftereffects when they happen."

I went to the hospital for a D.H.E. drip that would stop the most recent migraine right after his service despite my pleas. As it was, we had moved the hospital visit back a day so I could go to Daniel's service, but Dr. Merle wouldn't allow a day farther. I don't remember much after that, but apparently my mother got me calmed down enough that I finally received the IV and promptly zoned out to the TV while holding my Phantom book.

My mother believes that's when my fear of needles truly began, started by the intense emotional loss of a friend. I personally believe it's just because I can't stand sharp objects sticking into me. It's unnatural. While I had thought about blogging something happier, this had to be done. At least in hopes that by writing this, maybe the dreams will stop and I can stop waking up with tears in my eyes and wanting to cry.

Themes, projects, and Korean Music Oh my!

One of my New Year's resolutions was that I would blog more. 

Ha. Look how that turned out. 

Well, I have the rest of the year to make up for it. I mean, I shouldn't have to update every other day and in no way, shape, or form, will I have an adequate amount of time to blog during the semester. Usually I do better during the breaks. Yet what do you know, I didn't blog the whole winter break. 

Le sigh. I'm pathetic.

I spent all of winter break trying to figure out what my next project on here would be. For the summer that is. (*cough*SCHOOL*cough*) I originally thought of reviewing classic novels, or my journey into reading all those classics that everyone is "supposed" to read. No offense to the classics, but sometimes I want to bang my head against a wall when I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It could be the writing style of specific time periods, but then I probably wouldn't have fallen in love with "Phantom of the Opera."

Actually, strike that. I'm just obsessed with anything Phantom related. (Yep, totally listened to musical first, read the book second. Bad Suzie. BAD.)

But I thought, maybe just maaaaaaaybe, I could try reading some of those novels again and blog my thoughts, feelings on the subject, etc. The thought sprung up at work when I was shelving an Ayn Rand book. I was reading the back of the book, skimming through the pages, totally uninterested (I haven't met anyone who loves her yet....if you do, feel free to try to convince to me read her books. I probably won't...) and proceeded to look over some more titles saying to myself, yet again, "I really should read some of these."

The next idea sprung up from my sister who is a well-spring of themes for blogs. Sitting in the living room a couple days after Christmas, I was looking at my "Good Eats: The Middle Years" cookbook/anthology that I had received as a present. Katie states that I should attempt a Julie/Julia project. After my response that it had already been done, she just continued with "No, with Good Eats! You can make all the recipes out of your books!"

"Uh, no."

"Why not?"

"That would require me to make sushi and squid. I'm not going to attempt that. Ew."

"Ok, not every recipe then."

So with that in mind I skimmed through my book trying to figure out what I wanted to make first. Then I promptly lost interest as we began to set up a Kinex roller coaster. 

That's ADD for ya.

Then I considered making it a confessions type blog. You know, random things I'm interested in or actual thoughts about situations I'm in....but the theme would be as though I was confessing it... Yeah it sounds more lame as I type. I think that came about just because I was trying to figure out a way to write about my recent love affair with the Korean music scene. 

Really, it's a lot more interesting than one would assume. They fulfill my boy-band craving from my childhood. That and the talent over there is just burgeoning. Like every few months I feel like I've found a new group or artist. Plus, it's not just me! MTV has a web page dedicated to just Korean music and the whole culture. MTV! Also apparently many celebs have an interest in their music. Will.i.am is currently working on an album with this edgier girl group (2ne1, weird name, awesome music.) that will debut in the good ol' US of A. 

Well, now that just looks bad. I promise that this was not supposed to end up on the subject of Korean music. It has taken over my free time. If an artist is talented, I don't care what language their songs are in, I'll listen to it. I'm just hoping that some of those artists are able to make it in the US, if only for the fact that so far, no Asian artist has made it big in America. (As far as I know....I'm just getting into this whole subject.) 

So yeah, projects.....not sure what I'll end up going with, but for the rest of this semester I think I'll just stick with my usual whatever-the-heck-pops-into-my-head-nonsense. Maybe I'll do all three. Just not in any order. Who knows, lets see what happens hmm?