Heather W

October 8, 2010

English 10 - Period 4

Autobiographical Narrative

Final Draft

                                                      Horrible Day

“You have a tumor on your left ovary, that you need surgically removed.” The doctor said. Those are the words I never expected to hear.  I was laying in the E.R bed with jabbing sharp pains in my lower left side. I laid there not sure of what was happening to me, and the doctors wouldn’t say. They just kept coming in and out of my room and I was unaware of what they were doing. At the young age of 13 I knew this was not the thing I wanted to be going through.

           On June 3rd, 2008 at  the age of 13, I was living in Oceanside at a place called Casa De Amparo. First I started feeling excruciating pain when I laid down, but I thought it was just really bad cramps. I told the overnight staff, Virgil about my  really bad pain but all he gave me was a warm pack and acetaminophen and sent me back to bed. I woke up the next morning and felt a little better when I stood up. I went about my day as usual but the pain came back again when I laid down for bed. I went out and told him that I was still having the same symptoms as the night before and asked iIf one of his staff could take me to the emergency room. He said that he didn’t have enough staff on the floor to take me and thought that my pain wasn’t that serious. So I heated up a warm pack and went to sleep; waking up to an early, painful, Monday morning. A staff woman named Essi, took everyone on their medical appointments. I walked out of my room and told her the symptoms I was experiencing for the past few nights. She got very upset at Virgil for not taking my pain as seriously as needed to. Essi then told me to get in the car and she raced off to the emergency room.

Around eight that morning I was in the emergency room.  It took forever for them to call me back to be seen. When they finally called me back it was hard for me to move because of my severe symptoms. They told me to get undressed and then I waited in my bed to be seen. The doctor in a white gown came in and told me I needed a CAT scan. The CAT scan technician came and took me to get the procedure. I was nervous and scared that something was going to go wrong. The machine scared me because it made noises, and you had to be very still and follow the directions the big white, round, circle gave you. When it was over I went back to my room and waited for the doctor to come and reveal my results. He came in about forty-five minutes later to get me up to date. The doctor said, “After looking at your images, I saw something but it was too big for the screen to reveal what it was, so you need to have an ultrasound done.” I was shaking with fear because the doctor made it seem like their was something serious going on. The ultrasound technician came in five minutes later and performed the ultrasound. I was in so much pain and then the lady pushed the wand down on my stomach and I started screaming. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to hurt that lady for making me have so much more pain. After she was done she carted me back to my room.

        The doctor came in forty minutes later.  He had a concerned look on his face that made me devastated. “You have a tumor on your left ovary, that you need surgically removed,” he replied.  He told me that he was sending an ambulance to come and take me to Rady’s Children Hospital in San Diego. I asked the doctor what would happened if I refused to go have the surgery. He said they would tell me at the hospital when they introduced me to my surgeon. The ambulance drivers came in and whisked me off. I had never been in an ambulance so I was horrified. I didn’t like the drive because it felt awkward the way I was positioned, and looking out the window seeing cars come towards me.

        I arrived at the hospital around noon. When they took me out, they rolled me into an elevator and took me to my room. There was two nurses that came in a gave me a catheter. Then two men and a lady came in to talk about who they were and what  they were going to do with me. My surgeon Dr. Seanz explained that he was going to remove the twinkie looking tumor on my left ovary. My anesthesiologist explained that he was going to be the person that put me to sleep and made sure that I didn’t wake up during the process. The lady just told me that everything was going to be alright and normal. I asked my surgeon what would happened if I refused to follow through on the surgery and he told me I would die because it would burst inside of me. They asked me if I was ready to go to the procedure room. I hesitated at first but then realized it needed to be done. They brought me to the room where they lifted me on to the table. Everybody in the room was dressed in surgeon caps, booties and scrubs. My anesthesiologist started injecting fluid into my arm and told me to count to five. I honestly don’t even remember counting to one, I was really confused.

        When I woke up I was in the recovery room. I remember my vision was blurry and I thought I saw my mom. The nurse came and asked me if I was doing alright and I shrugged my shoulders because I didn’t know. The surgeon came in and told me that the whole procedure took two and a half hours, and that they also noticed that my fallopian tube was wrapped around my ovary three times. Then the nurses took me to my room and gave me an I.V that would control how much medicine I needed to receive. After that my family came in to visit me. Once my family left that day I remained there for a week and a half. I was still in pain but I had to say I was in relief because I knew that it was a good kind of pain. I felt lonely for the week and a half that I spent by myself.

        Now that I look back I am glad that I did not resist. Before I thought I was just having really bad cramps and could overcome it. It continued so Essi took me to the emergency room. After, I found out that I was going to need surgery. I felt resistant about getting the surgery but knew that if I didn’t I wouldn’t be alive today.So I told the doctor I would be willing to do it. Finally after the surgery was done I was still in pain but I knew that everything was going to be okay.