The Symptoms of My Insanity

by Mindy Raf

  I want to run into one of those hospital rooms and gulp down the first bottle of pills I see, because everyone has seen that picture now, and people will talk, and then they’ll all know it’s me, and then Mom’s going to know, and she’s going to be so disappointed. She’s going to be so disappointed in me. It will be so much worse than the nafka top I wore to that stupid party. It will be so much worse than sneaking out to that party to begin with. It will be more negative energy than her stomach cells can handle. And then she’ll never focus on getting better. And it will be because of me.

  I’m so stupid.

  I’m such a stupid, stupid, stupid person.

  Actually, no, I’m not even a person. I’m a task! That’s how Blake Hangry has always thought of me. Not that I care what some sleaze bucket thinks anyway. And I hate that I’m even thinking about him right now. It’s just upsetting to realize that all the good snapshots of someone in your head were never any good at all. That they were actually terrible.

  “Isabella Skymen?”

  Suddenly there’s a “Hi, I’m Patricia” name tag in my line of vision.

  “Isabella?”

  “Oh. Yes?”

  “Hi there, honey. I just wanted you to know that you’ll be able to see your mom in a little bit,” she says, giving me this big smile as if she’s just told me I’m going to Disneyland. Which I guess is nice. I know it’s just her job to be super-friendly, but still it’s kinda nice to see someone with a Disneyland smile when you’re in a place like this.

  “Has Dr. Madson talked to you yet?” she asks.

  “No, no one’s talked to me.”

  “Oh … okay …” she says, looking at her clipboard.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “Your mom came in this afternoon … right?” she asks more to herself than to me, flipping through her chart. “Okay, yeah. So Dr. Madson’s got her set up in room 5112 for the night, and then as soon as he—”

  “What?” I shoot up from my chair. “For the night? No, she’s not staying here—she’s just here for an appointment, a checkup.”

  The nurse looks at me cautiously for a second and then says, “Okay, um … just wait right here for a sec, honey. Let me just see if I can get some more info for you.” I watch as she flips through the chart she’s holding and heads back to her station.

  I don’t wait around, though. I grab all our stuff and head to room 5112.

  • • •

  “Mom!” is all I manage to get out when I see her lying in bed wearing one of those hospital gowns and with all these needles in her arms that are attached to beeping machines, which are attached to poles on wheels with plastic bags full of liquid. I’m having flashbacks to the summer. This was just supposed to be a checkup!

  “Hi, sweetie,” she says, quickly trying to scoot up to a sitting position.

  “What’s wrong? What’s going on?” I move closer to the bed. I want to give her a hug but am afraid I might disconnect something.

  “Don’t be scared. It’s just IVs.” She gestures me over. “One for nausea, for fluids, that’s all.” She smiles and reaches out her arms, and I give her a soft hug and a kiss on the cheek, grateful for the combo of her baby oil moisturizer and perfume after being in Lysol land for so long.

  “I just told one of the nurses to get you,” she’s saying to me. “I think her name was Becky. She’s the one who’s got on that really awful, orangey lipstick”—Mom pulls back and wrinkles her nose—“but so, so nice.” She smiles. “I told her that you might still be in the waiting area and—”

  “No, well, this other nurse just told me that you were—”

  “And Pam should be here soon, and she’s called Allissa, who—”

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  My mom opens her mouth to say something, but then—

  “I completely forgot you wouldn’t have your cell phones on in here!” Pam cries, barreling into the room and pulling a large rolling suitcase behind her. “I called both your phones. Izzy, I called yours hours ago. I’m sorry—I forgot what room they told me, and then I forgot the doctor’s name, and that stupid shuttle system. Why don’t they have a parking structure for this wing? Fortunately I got pointed in the right direction.”

  Pam parks the suitcase against the wall, gives Mom a kiss and me a shoulder squeeze.

  “Oh, yes, that’s the one I was talking about. Thank you, thank you, Pam,” Mom says, gesturing to the suitcase.

  “I think I got everything. At least I hope so. I just took all your makeup. I didn’t know what was good and what was crap. So what you don’t need, you won’t use. I got your good moisturizer, and two hairbrushes. Oh, and I took six pairs of underwear, I hope from the right drawer. That should be enough. We can always get you more underwear; that’s not an issue. And I got pajamas, and a robe, and …” She stops to catch her breath. “So, any more news?”

  More news? I don’t have any news! And why does Mom need a suitcase and six pairs of underwear? And why is it so hot? I take off my sweater; the neck-hole feels like it’s strangling me. But before I can get a word in, Mount Allissa erupts into the room, spouting a mile a minute. She’s saying something about her exam, and then something about the traffic and how the guy in the minivan had no right to give her the finger since she had plenty of room to switch lanes without signaling. I interrupt because I have no idea what’s going on and everything is just chaos.

  “Are you staying here overni—?”

  “Yeah, why do you need a suitca—?”

  “How long are you—?”

  “That IV is fluids, and the other is—?”

  “You thirsty, you need wa—?”

  “I thought this was just a—?”

  “Where’s the doctor? Who’s the doctor? Are you dehyd—?”

  “WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON?” I practically shout over everyone else.

  Mom responds to all the verbal disorder by just raising her arms high in the air. Well, as high as they will go, hooked up to all that stuff. We all stop talking and look at her.

  “Pam, would you run out and ask the nurse to get me another cup of ice, please?” she asks. And once Pam has shut the door behind her, Mom says, “Okay, sit. Both of you sit, please. I can’t focus with all this movement.”

  Allissa and I each sit down on a rolling stool and wheel ourselves closer to the bed.

  “I don’t understand [sniffle] why you’re [whimper] here,” Allissa sobs out.

  “It’s okay,” Mom says, giving Allissa’s hand a squeeze. “I’m just staying here for a little bit because Dr. Madson seems to think I might have a little blockage.”

  “What?” Allissa whimpers.

  “Blockage,” I repeat.

  “Bowel obstruction,” Mom says, like she’s saying she has a stuffy nose.

  “What’s causing [sniffle] this [sob, whimper] blockage [gasp]?”

  “Well, it seems that there are some issues with my colon and my appendix, and now some … of the stuff has backed up into my stomach, and so I’m a little … blocked.” I can tell Mom’s choosing her words carefully.

  “Like gastroparesis,” I say.

  “Yes … well, yes.” Mom gives me a quizzical look. “Dr. Madson seems to think, from the results of my last CAT scan and also my latest tumor markers, that perhaps my PMP may be morphing.”

  And then it gets so quiet in the room that I swear I can hear the liquid pass through Mom’s IVs.

  “Morphing? Morphing?” Allissa repeats like a parrot.

  “Morphing into what?” I ask.

  “Well, he thinks it’s possible that I have a faster-growing strain now, or actually, two different strains, so—”

  “But that—that doesn’t make any sense,” I stammer. “It can’t just speed up!”

  “I know, sweetie. But you know how this disease is … it’s like trying to predict what the weather will be this same day ten years from now. So even if it has morphed and if it is growing at … at a different rate … well … lis
ten, nothing’s for sure yet, okay? So there’s no reason to get worried.”

  Then Dr. Madson walks in, his shiny silver hair dented as if he just took a hat off. He’s wearing a suit, and a stethoscope. He looks more like a businessman playing doctor than a veteran surgeon. He shakes Allissa’s hand and then mine as Becky and her orangey lipstick wheel in a vitals cart, telling us they have to run some tests and that we can come back a little bit later.

  I barely hear her, though. No reason to get worried. No reason to get worried. No reason to get worried. I’m running these words through my head, but they don’t make any sense at all.

  • • •

  “I don’t think this chicken is cooked.” I hold up my fork, speared with a piece of what the hospital cafeteria claims is a chicken Caesar salad. Worst late-night dinner ever.

  Allissa looks up at me from her own soggy cafeteria salad, her sparkly purple eye shadow catching the fluorescent lights and glittering. “Just eat.”

  This is the first conversation Allissa and I have had in ten minutes. I started the last one too.

  “Where do you want to sit?”

  “I don’t really care, wherever.”

  So at least our topics are improving.

  “I don’t want salmonella,” I inform her.

  She responds by fishing out a baby carrot from her salad and popping it into her mouth.

  “I read they wash those things in chlorine.” I point at the carrots in the bowl. “There’s actually no such thing as a baby carrot, did you know that? These are like fake, mutant—”

  “Izzy!” She slaps my hand away from her bowl. “Can I please just eat in peace?”

  “Sorry.” I stab at another piece of chicken with my fork, attempting to gauge if the meat is light pink or white. “I really do feel nauseated, though, my head feels … clammy.”

  “You’re not nauseated, you’re not clammy, you’re not dying!”

  “I know I’m not dying.” I drop my fork, deciding on pink. “But I’m just saying if salmonella isn’t treated, then—”

  “You don’t have salmonella.”

  “Not yet, but—”

  “Izzy!” Every muscle on my sister’s face does a vertical stretch.

  “What?”

  Her fork clatters to her tray.

  “I’m so sick of your stupid, dramatic, death, health, crap!” she says really loud and really fast, like she’s being timed and has to get out the sentence before the buzzer.

  I just stare back at her, feeling my nose start to tighten.

  “You’re not dying, Izzy. You’re not sick. You’re fine.”

  “I know,” I manage to get out.

  “I’m so sick of you being sick.”

  “Okay, Allissa. I heard you the first time.”

  “Mom’s the one who’s sick, Mom’s the one who’s dying.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Well, she is.”

  I furiously shake my head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re—”

  “I may not do all your psycho research and know all your medical lingo crap, but I know about PMP. I’ve read about it too, Izzy. I’m not as big an idiot as you think I am.”

  “I never said you were! I never—”

  “Most people, most people at Mom’s stage live for like two or maybe four years after their first major surgery, and that’s not counting if it like … morphs or whatever.”

  “Just stop talking, Allissa. I don’t … I don’t feel well.”

  “What? What’s wrong with you now? I thought you liked talking about this stuff.” Allissa is practically baring her teeth at me.

  “Nothing, I just—” I stop, trying to take a deep breath in. “My chest hurts, it feels like—”

  “You’re fine! Stop making everything about you. God, I can’t handle it anymore. You shouldn’t be worried about your chest or salmonella or your thyroid or … You should be worried about what’s going to happen after, when Mom’s gone and we’re alone.”

  “I said stop talking!”

  “Like where are you going to live? Probably with Grandma Iris. Or with Dad and Jessica! You’re probably going to have to move, and switch schools, and I’m going to have to drop out of college unless Grandma Iris pays for it, which she won’t because she’ll probably be in debt from Mom’s medical bills by that point anyway—”

  “STOP TALKING!” I bolt up fast, so fast that I knock into the table and my entire tray clatters to the floor. Suddenly I feel the weight of everyone’s eyes on me, every pale-faced patient, worried-looking family member, table of residents. I feel like they’re all looking at me and my upside-down tray of undercooked chicken on the floor.

  Which I probably should pick up already, but I don’t. Instead, I tell Allissa to “have fun cleaning that up,” and walk away.

  CHAPTER 21

  I need to talk to my mom.

  As soon as I walk out of the elevator, I feel my phone vibrate. I stop, guessing I should probably take advantage of the fact that I’m standing in a magical spot that actually gets reception. I take a deep breath and open my phone quickly, like I’m ripping off a bandage. Please don’t be another picture message. It’s not. It’s a text from Blake that reads Pls cal me! I’ll xplain.

  Okay, seriously? That’s what he writes? He’ll “xplain”? I can’t believe after what he did to me that he can’t even take the time to write out whole words!

  I stuff my phone into my pocket and head back to Mom’s room, but the door is still closed. So instead I trudge over to the waiting area, and collapse into my same chair. No thanks, Blake. I don’t need you to “xplain” anything.

  “Hey Izzy.” Pam meanders over from the vending machine. “I think I’ve changed my mind—I’m going to head down to the cafeteria after all. Doctor’s still in there and these pretzels aren’t getting the job done.” She throws me the bag. “Anything good down there?”

  I shake my head.

  “Okay, well, I’ll be right back.” She gives my shoulders a squeeze.

  I put the half-eaten bag of pretzels down on the chair next to me, my hands and my head still feeling clammy. I need to do something. I look down at the carpeting, which is this pattern of all these interconnecting shapes. I try to trace the pattern with my eyes and find the starting point, but after about thirty seconds I feel woozy and give up. Then I try again, and again, until I’m even more nauseated than I was in the cafeteria. I take a break and eat a stale pretzel and then try again. I’m in the middle of doing another pattern-trace when I’m interrupted by Allissa’s heels.

  She plops down next to me, practically covering her face with her Soap Opera Digest.

  “You dropped these.”

  I turn toward the voice of the pale-faced man sitting across from us. He’s interrupted the game of solitaire he was playing on the empty chair next to him, to lean forward and pick up my bag of pretzels from the carpet.

  “Thank you.” I take the pretzels from him and throw them in my backpack. I see the man still leaning forward and looking at me.

  “Hello,” he says. He’s about Mom’s age, maybe a little younger, and wearing one of those shiny neon tracksuits. It makes a loud swishing sound when he moves.

  “Hi,” I say back. “Um … how are you?”

  “Oh, I’m okay, for the moment,” he says with a sigh. “And how are you tonight?”

  “I’m okay … for the moment too.”

  “Well, good. Moment to moment’s as far as we can go, right?”

  “Right.” I nod.

  “Got someone in there?” he asks, gesturing to the halls.

  I nod again.

  “My wife’s in there,” he says, and points to one of the hallways to our left [swish]. “I’m waiting for them to bring her out so we can take a walk.”

  “That’s good,” I say.

  “Yeah, it’s real good [swish], her walking now. Been rough [swish]. Came out of her second debulking a couple weeks ago …”

  He continues.
“The first one, ’bout two years back, went a lot better. She was walking sooner, not as many complications, but [swish] she’s walking a little now, so that’s good [swish]. That’s real good.”

  I nod back at him and smile, pushing my lips together tightly, like the harder I smile-push, the better I’ll feel.

  “Was that your mom?” the man asks, and I realize he’s talking about Pam.

  “Oh, no, my mom’s … she’s a patient of Dr. Madson’s, so—” I cut myself off, hearing my voice jump an octave and crack a little.

  “Okay,” he says, “well then, I’ll keep her in my prayers.”

  “Thank you.” And I really mean it because honestly, that’s the best thing I’ve heard anybody say all day. He gives me a smile and goes back to his game of solitaire.

  A young-looking, frail woman in a hospital gown and bright pink slippers shuffles her way closer to us a couple minutes later, helped by two nurses. She’s hunched over a bit, gripping her pole on wheels with both hands. She looks, at most, ninety pounds. Her shoulders are sharp, and her skin looks colorless, like she’s wearing one of those Halloween masks where the face is all one shade. She’s got three or four different tubes coming from her middle, all emptying liquids into different bags clipped to the bottom of her pole.

  She steps closer to us and her lips curve upward when she sees the man in the tracksuit. I guess she’s happy to see him, but it’s hard to tell because her eyes are kind of glazed over. The man gets up with a swish. He stands next to her and gently puts his arm out for her to grab. She puts her hand on his forearm and leans into him a little bit. “Thata girl,” he says.

  He nods a good-bye to me and I almost lose it as I watch them inch by, thinking about how if it’s true, if it is morphing or has already morphed … I open my eyes really wide hoping to dry them out. Then I shut them tight, trapping my tears inside.

  I glance over at Allissa, who’s acting like she’s still reading her magazine, even though her face is wet and she’s yet to flip the page.

  “I’m going … I’m gonna go for a walk,” she barely gets out before briskly walking away.

  I focus for the next five minutes or so on keeping my eyes dry by opening them really wide and going back to tracing the carpet pattern. Then I hear, “All set in there. You can go back now,” as Becky passes me by with a smile, pushing Mom’s vitals cart.