One of the most fundamental ways to fix a lung collapse is to insert a chest tube in surgery while the patient is awake. Now this wasn't my first chest tube so I knew what I was getting into, but I wasn't ready for what would end up happening. Instead of inserting the tube into the chest cavity, the doctors inserted the tube through my lung wall into my lung. That isn't where it goes. First of all, obviously if you remove that tube, there will be a hole in the lung and it will collapse again. It did, four more times.
Back to November 23rd, the doctors didn't realize their mistake and that cost me three hours of the most excruciating pain I will ever experience. In those three hours, I was fed morphine by the minute and injected with enough local anesthesia to sedate the entire emergency room. My parents were in a waiting room half a football field away and still had to hear their son's screams. I felt bad for my mom especially because just two months earlier her mother, my grandmother, died in the room right next to mine. Well, the pain eventually subsided somewhere around dawn. I knew that because I mostly just felt high.
Back to November 23rd, the doctors didn't realize their mistake and that cost me three hours of the most excruciating pain I will ever experience. In those three hours, I was fed morphine by the minute and injected with enough local anesthesia to sedate the entire emergency room. My parents were in a waiting room half a football field away and still had to hear their son's screams. I felt bad for my mom especially because just two months earlier her mother, my grandmother, died in the room right next to mine. Well, the pain eventually subsided somewhere around dawn. I knew that because I mostly just felt high.
My life went on past that day. I'm here now and I'm writing this. I'm not in pain anymore, but I was, and I will always remember that. My family, my friends, and I, along with various others who have heard my story along the way, know what happened to me. My experiences have taught me that everyone has a unique situation and it is only the stories that tell the truth in which you get to hear it all. You wouldn't be able to know my story by looking at me. Someone who sees me on the subway won't know that I've had over fifteen surgeries so far in my life ranging from a double hernia at age five to a sinus surgery at seventeen. The scars on my side tell a totally different story to the doctor who examines them. There are certain stories that thrive off of the good without any sort of mention of struggle or pain. It is almost as if the writer is hiding the bad from the reader because the writer can't even bring herself to writing about it. I want to tell the types of stories that don't hold anything back in the way of revealing the true underlying struggle that people experience. I want my work to inform people and make things known to them that wouldn't normally be known, no matter how bad it may be. I believe that the readers of a book or viewers of a movie should be shown certain realities that may put things in context for them. If I'm a writer for any sort of storytelling medium, I want my audience to be informed of all truths. I am inspired by everything around me. I like to make stories up in my mind about people I see, other subway riders for instance. It keeps me entertained. As my life goes on, I will see many more people and experience many more things, further enhancing my story writing repertoire.
