The Truth: An Autobiography in Poetry and Prose

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The Truth

An Autobiography In Poetry & Prose

iUniverse LLC

The Day the World Changed

Health can push you back or sling you forward. It is the metaphysical subject with which some have been bestowed the opening to see what without, the greatest pitfalls in life can be. To take it for granted is just as bad, and for those of us who aren't as fortunate to have it all the time, when we do, oh when we do the angels from above they sing. If their song was a colour or a feeling it would be light. Light that shines in the shadows of dark, light that reminds you how beautiful, how sweet it is to have. It is this light that echoes and evokes so deep within you to never take the time that you do have for granted, because in an instant it could be gone. Yet only those who have been ill fated of knowing what it is to be without could know how beautiful it is to have.

I was seven that day.

It was the perfect June day, a breadth of azure blue that made up the sky. Not a cloud in sight, just the beginning of the summer's sun touching each of our little faces. I was trying to do cartwheels, which I never got around to mastering. Still, I ran, paused, flipped, failed. The bottled essence of being a child. Playing marbles on the gravel in the schoolyard—I loved the iridescent ones; which looked like fallen stars. I remember telling the other kids that I was different now, that I had a disease. What it was, I wasn't sure of, but it was the end of the school year and I was in the midst of switching schools. At the time, it didn't really spark too much interest. And that was fine with me.

Dr. Mengele: Merciless Maniac

I was 7, and was about to get my first scope and biopsy. Not clear on what to expect, as this world was so new, and naturally with the innocence of a child put my trust in the doctor.

He was supposed to help.
He didn't.
Unfortunately this incidence
Would be vandalism of my childhood,
Graffitied in my soul,
My mind,
Forever.

My parents and I went into the children's hospital in Ottawa. It was the middle of the afternoon, and we walked into his office. He told me that I would be eating my last normal meal, so I should go to lunch and eat whatever I desired. In a few hours, I could return for the scope.

I asked whether I would be put to sleep, and he assured me that I would. With that, we left and went to McDonald's. I remember eating my cheeseburger and noticing that my parents were somber and quiet. We ate and made our way back to my appointment. The nurse gave me a tablespoon of cough syrup, my sedative. They told me to wait about 15 minutes for it to kick in and make me feel sleepy. Once the time was up and I felt no different, I began to panic: I asked why I wasn't asleep given the fact that they promised I would be.

They told me not to worry. I was then brought into a room where I changed into the standard hospital robes. I laid on my left side on a metal hospital table that had two chairs with my parents in it facing me. My mom and dad were holding my hands, trying to calm me down. The rest of my body was pinned down by the other nurses.

And then he scoped me.

I was 7.

Wide-awake.

A steel rod had been shoved up my anus.

Monstrous pain.

Impaled.

Suffering in its third degree,
Screams of utter horror,
Bombs of abomination
Raged out of my tiny mouth.
Bulging veins formed on the sides of my neck;
Face reddened from lack of oxygen.
Consumed with shrieks,
Pleading, begging for mercy.
Spit froth at the mouth;
Webs of saliva linked my opened, petrified lips.
Goopy, mucus ran out of my nose;
Boiling hot tears watered my face.
Eyes that were pried open by the lifeless hands of Terror
As though he hammer the back of my head,
Making them pop out of their sockets.
Looked back into those of my parents.
Their fear,
The pale on their faces,
Formed gazes of pure terror.

Notice drawn jaws,
Weeping open-eyed tears,
Telling of how utterly fucked up the situation was.
The sheer horror of the vision of me in that moment,
Sadistically sodomized
By someone my parents and I put our trust into.

The room,
The colourless icy chill of the wrath,
Violating, rattling my anatomy.

That situation
Made real
The fact that we were living in some vicious hell
On earth.

I asked to see the scope afterward.
I was an extremely curious girl.
He kept his eerie word,
Showing it to me while my mother stood beside me.
The tool he had used to deface me.
It was a flexible, stainless steel rod,
Absolutely smothered in my blood.
To our dismay,
It turned out to be
An adult scope.
My tiny, 7-year-old body
Was forced to endure it.

He cut the inside of my intestines,
All while I
Was so very awake.
And my helpless parents
Sat and watched
With horror.
He was creepy;
He was beastly, foul, disgusting,
Putrid, repellent.
Vomit.

That whole scenario was a mortifying devistation. It was a weird sci-fi horror movie come to life.

He robbed me of my innocence. He is the devil. And if there is one person, that I would not flinch if I heard they dropped dead, today, tomorrow, mark my words it's him.

At the time, this disease was so rare among the young, that following this episode of a freakshow my parents were forced to look elsewhere. I would land in Toronto Sick Kids Hospital, where I would be taken care of, and where my future experiences with doctors was respectful as well as keeping intact my dignity and childhood.

The Beginning

The battles that I endured over the following two years were pivotal. It was the beginning of the realization, the awareness that I was different. It was the start of my struggle accepting the fact that I had a disease. I was 8—a child—and I was fearless, as most children are. I had my first taste of another world, a world no parents want their child to be, that no parent wants to see.

It would change me.

My parents dropped me off at school that September. The school that I transferred to was closer to one that my two older brothers went to. They had just transferred, so together, all three of us began a new leaf, a new chapter. I was never made to feel as though I was different at home. My eldest brother, Roman, always the nurturer, comforted when I needed it. Wes was responsible for all of the horsing around.

They still loved me even though I was suddenly different. I was still me. I entered the school year beginning my quest to make new friends. A few weeks had gone by, and I was comfortable. I met Remy, who was originally from Australia. She had mousey, slate brown hair and almond, blue eyes. She also had little freckles that kissed her button-like nose. And then there was Lucy, who lived a block away. She had cat-like brown eyes, deep dark hair, a ski-sloped nose with a speckle freckle that touched her right cheek. And finally Dylan who lived right by the school. Sandy-blonde curly Q's tightly took over her head, round emerald-green eyes, and a pug nose in the center of her face. I decided to tell them I had a disease called Crohn's. From that moment on, everything changed. For one, I experienced countless acts of bullying. And for the first of time in my life, I would encounter the ever so careful tip toeing of loneliness. I now knew how different I was from that moment forward.

Visit after visit to the principal's office to stop the bullying left me feeling helpless. I even considered ending my life. At times, I sat in my room and pondered what it would be like to end it, end it all. Even though I was so young, the emotions were raw. They were picking on me about something I had absolutely no control over, my disease. Brainwashing me into believing I was the problem, I was not worthy of having friends. I ate lunch alone; none of the girls would touch me or come close to me. They didn't even send a glance my way for fear that they would catch this dreaded disease. I was contagious, I was gross, I was weird, I was defected, I was repulsive, I was disgusting. I felt like a scab, nitpicked, cast by a wicked spell. As though there was no way out; I had no future because, from what I gathered, if this was as good as it got, I was fucked.

The negativity of these episodes ate me alive,
Swallowed me whole.
I couldn't see a way out.
I was trapped,
Snared bait, booby-trapped.
Bludgeoned by the quicksand of their dialects,
Tormented, tangled by their nets.
Attacked, shot, fired at by their missals.
These blows to the head
Left a part of me for dead.

These people
Have the unfortunate burden of bearing
That thick, dense, heaviness with them forever:
Knowing that they crushed a budding rose.
Shattered glass
Shook the sky.
And all for what, exactly?

A part of my childhood,
A part of my soul
Died those years,
And I will never
Be able to get that back.

Regrettably
For them,
They will face a day
When they will fear
That a child could do the same things
To their little ones.
It will haunt them.

Their actions
That they so eagerly volunteered
In taking part of
Are written all over them.
Branded like sheep—
The sheep that they are—
While the scent of burning flesh
Fills the halls through which they pass.

Those experiences,
That bullying,
Planted a seed within me:
It made me fearful of my own disease
It made me ashamed.

What if other people found out? How would they react? And with that, I made a decision to keep it a secret, to bury it, to dig a deep hole, and to shovel dirt, as much dirt as I could find to cover it. I would never tell anyone except those closest to me. And when the time came, if I unleashed the monster, I would insist that they not repeat it to a single soul. It was the biggest secret, and I could not bear to face it.

All I wanted was to be normal.

Capture Your Imagination

That November rolled around, balmy pillows of marshmallow snow took over the streets and swirled its way across massive pine trees. Dusting its trails all over the city almost like footprints marking a path as if to say, 'I was here.' Not leaving a nook untouched. The beginning of winter is the reminder of the fragility of my health. Since my diagnosis I was on a buffet of daily medications. As though trying to find the missing piece of a puzzle, constantly trying different combinations to make the last piece fit. A mathematical equation, that kept getting re-worked, in order to get solved. A constant guessing game, just hoping that the next one was the answer. Taking them with the high hopes that they would work this time. This hope, you reach on the tips of your toes for, your hand stretching so far you could swear it would split. This hope is the variable that you need to survive. If you give up on it, stop believing in it, turn your back on it, you've lost.

These medications that I was playing a constant game with, had severe impacts on my immune system, which landed me in the hospital more than I can remember not being in one.

For the rest of my life, I thought.

My first time being hospitalized was that same year, in November. I had a viral infection, and was admitted to the children's hospital almost immediately. I was in isolation for months. There was a glass room where the doctors and anyone who came to visit had to put on a head-to-toe suit and mask before entering the door to my room, in order to prevent any form of inection to gain access. I still remember the smell of the hospital. It was sterile, too sterile. And the food smelled like old, wet mothballs, rubber, and steam. I remember my mother sleeping beside me every night on that awful cot that rolled out from under the chair. But most of all, I remember being positioned in the cancer ward. My immune system was as weak as theirs, so that is where I was put. I remember the friends I made—Finn, for instance, was adopted, and he had a miniature mullet and a rat tail. He was a bit of a rascal, I remember that. He had leukemia and a shunt in his heart for the chemotherapy treatment. Another friend was Clover. She had leukemia, too, and she had big, brown butterfly eyes and reddish-brown, silky hair. I watched both of my friends go through chemotherapy. They withered away, deteriorated, disintegrated slowly in front of my eyes. I believe that they are two heroes, survivors.

Time went on and my stay grew longer. I had mountains of blood work done numerous times throughout the day. Eventually, the veins in my arms collapsed. They then went to my fingertips, and finally, my toes. Countless doctors visited. Mentally and physically, this gets tiring. I reached a boiling point. We knew things weren't going well: I had been in the hospital for a few months with no progress, and had been talking to my mother about seeing angels. More specifically, I mentioned my grandfather, who was hiding under my bed. I painted in the art room alongside Finn, who would also paint the vivid visions of angels he saw. Things weren't good; actually, they looked quite grim.

One night, I was fed up. I was frustrated and wanted everyone to leave me alone. I felt my mother's hand caress my forehead gently, which wasn't unusual. She did this many times throughout the night to make sure I didn't have a fever. This time I did. I begged her not to tell anyone, to let me sleep. I just wanted to be left alone, "Please!" I pleaded. She was worried; I was her baby. She did what anyone would have done in that situation and told the nurses. I remember the lights flipping back on and the nurses and doctors rushing in. I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe. What more do they want from me? I wondered. Haven't I given them enough already? I remember screaming at my mom, "How could you do this to me? I hate you!" I couldn't breathe. She was in the corner of the room. She looked shrunken and crippled; she, too, was crying.

I found out years later that, that night, the doctors had taken her aside and told her that there was nothing more that they could do for me. They had done everything they could. "Talya, they told me I would lose my child that night." I can only imagine what my mother was feeling, what she was thinking. I put myself in her shoes, and it pains me. It took me years before I could retell that story. Death had crossed this path.

Things began to turn around, though. Within the next couple of weeks, the fever subsided. Prednisone, a steroidal medication, was working. I could finally leave the hospital. I was glad to get the IV out of my arm. It had been lodged in my vein for so long that it started to feel like normal. I was also sad—sad to leave the lovely nurses who had become my second mothers, those who took care of me, created relationships with me. In an instant, they were gone. I remember saying good-bye to Finn and Clover. I was sad to leave them, too.

That year, I decided I wanted a magician for my birthday. My birthday is in July, so no one was ever around. So I begged my mom to have my pretend birthday in May or June. So much time had gone by that my friends weren't back at school; my friends were in the hospital. That year, we brought the cake, the magician, and the birthday to the children's cancer wing, C4.

Later that summer, my mother told me that Finn died. I was outside playing with a balloon. She walked around to the front of the house where I was running around, back and forth. She told me she needed to talk to me about something. I stared back at her as if to say, "What, Mom? Can't you see I'm busy?" I made my way to her, she was standing on the cobblestone steps. When I got close enough, she knelt down held my hands, looked into my eyes, and began to tell me that Finn's chemotherapy hadn't worked, that he had died. I was old enough to understand the words that were coming out of her mouth. I said nothing. Silence. I remember looking up into the beautiful, clear-blue summer sky and squinting at the sun. I was blinded by light, stunned. My hand became limp. Letting go of the balloon, watched it float away into the big, open sky. Good-bye Fin. I knew he was part of the greater universe now, looking down upon me.

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Excerpted from The Truth by Talya Morgana Stein. Copyright © 2014 Talya Morgana Stein. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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