Erika
Godwin
English
1A K. Rogers
Essay
#1
2/18/2013
Life
always goes as planned; nothing more, nothing less
It was September 2004 when I started
my freshman year in high school. I had been dating this charming, handsome boy
named Anthony and also had amazing close friends that were always there for me.
It was a great way to start the school year and nothing could ruin my teenage
dream. I was always going to football games, shopping with my friends and
having the best of sleepovers. It wasn’t until one small incident that changed
my life forever. The blazing, hot sun beaming on my skin as I spent the day at
the park with my boyfriend; when I noticed a small, round like bump on my upper
right thigh. Considering it was so small I didn’t think much of it and
continued on my day at the park.
Later on that night, I got
home and picked it as if it were a small pimple since it began to bother me a little.
A small amount of liquid came out of it but being the hard head I am, I still
didn’t think much of it. Maybe at that point I should have though. A few days
went by and instead of it getting better and healing, it only got worse. My dad
seen it and thought it could be a small spider bite but reassured me it was ok.
My right leg was starting to swell and become bigger then my left leg. It began
to hurt around the site and became very red all over and at that point I began
to worry. The next day at school, in my 3rd period class which was
science, I must’ve gotten up to quickly because I felt something warm through
my pants. It was this nasty green pus coming out of the popped bump. I don’t
know if I was more relieved it popped or grossed out by the site of it oozing
out. Being the girly girl I am, I went straight to office, got it bandaged up
and then went home for the rest of the day. Now it was becoming a problem, from
a small bump to now this leaking, something because I couldn’t tell what it
was. I wanted it to just go away and I remember thinking to myself, what if I
have to get my leg cut off? My thoughts were giving me anxiety and I needed for
this thing to heal.
The next morning I
woke up and as I tried to get out of bed, I stood up and almost fainted. My
right leg was so heavy, hot and in more pain than ever now. I felt nauseous, my
head was already pounding within 10 minutes of being awake and I couldn’t take
this any longer. Therefore, it was definitely time to take a trip to the
emergency room and get this thing cleaned up and drained. As I arrived at
Sutter Memorial hospital, the nurses triaged me and then took me straight back.
They said it looked pretty bad and needed emergency assistance. I overheard the
nurse asking the doctor if she could perform a lance and drainage but for some
reason the doctor said it wasn’t possible. I was hoping that was all I needed
but now I had to stay and do a whole bunch of tests. I was so anxious to leave
and now all a sudden I would be there longer and maybe overnight? It was a big
shock to me since I never had any other medical problems. The nurse came back
into the room and swabbed a small amount of the greenish, yellow pus. When the
results came back, she explained that it was a staph infections with MRSA. It’s
very contagious she said and everyone had to wear gowns to come and see me. I
was so embarrassed at that point that I didn’t want anyone coming to see me,
not even my boyfriend who I missed dearly.
All these horrible thoughts of why this happened, to sad because I
couldn’t leave and be home with my family were running wild in my mind and
getting the best of me. Just to add the cherry on top of my whole situation, I
began to get a fever since the infection was spreading. How lovely right? Lying
in my hospital bed for about an hour before the doctor comes in and says ill
need surgery now. Some of the fat in my upper thigh was completely dead now and
they had to take it out or it could turn into gang green. I began crying and
soon after the doctor left my room my parents came back to see me, they
reassured me it will be fine and reminded me how it was better than to lose a
leg. They made me feel a little better but still very scared of having to go
under a knife for the first time in my life at age 13 was a trip to me. While preparing
for the surgery I kept thinking about how just a week before everything was
normal, I was having fun and all a sudden some infection was making me so sick
it could potentially kill me if I didn’t get it taken care of. The sick feeling
in my stomach came right back and I started to throw up. Scared, nervous, sad,
every emotion you could possibly think of was flowing through my body at the
point in time. I never came close to anything medically wrong with me and now
this out of nowhere?
As the nurses were
prepping me for emergency surgery, I started to shed tears again. I think if I
didn’t have my dad right by my side that day, I probably would’ve lost it. He
kept telling me that everything will turn out fine and it was be such a quick
procedure nothing would go wrong. I guess you could say he won father of the
year award for him being there 100 percent of the time for me. I said my
goodbye to him as the nurses wheeled my bed out of the room. The whole minute
of heading to the surgery room felt like hours to me. I began to get tunnel
vision and the sick feeling came back. I went into an ice cold room that just
felt like death to me and even smelled eerie. The feeling felt so intense I
could heart my own heart beat due to how nervous I was. One of the few people
in there explained to me that the iv he was putting would make me really sleepy
and make me fall asleep and by the time I wake up I’ll be in recovery room. He
asked me to start counting back from the number 100 and as I did I remember
getting to the number 95. As I felt my eyelids opening I felt so groggy, and
still really out of it. Sure enough I was in recovery room with my dad right
there by my side. I seen him and instantly felt a million times better. The
doctor nicely asked how I was feeling and told me I did an amazing job. He told
me that the surgery was perfect and that I got to the number 90 before
completely falling out of conscious. My dad patted my shoulder and said it was
all over now, no more worrying about it. Everything felt good to me but my leg
felt exactly like it should have. Like a knife just cut deep into it and as the
pain medicine wore off I was in major pain now. Then the nurses took me from
recovery room to my hospital room and soon as I looked in there was my sister,
mom, brothers and my boyfriend. I’m pretty sure I’ve never grinned so big in my
life. I was so happy to see all them and see that they were there supporting
me. No longer did I feel the pain of my leg.
This whole experience was a roller coaster of emotions and even though it could have been worse, it wasn’t
something Id sign up for again in the future. I stayed in the hospital for a
total of 11 days and was on 9 pills a day when I got home to make sure the
whole infection was dead. It did make me realize that life throws curve balls
at you whenever and you just got to get through it. From feeling like I was on
top of the world with the perfect start to high school, to getting a minor bump
then turning into something dangerous was quite the experience for me. I’ll
make sure I don’t pick at any small cuts or bumps in the future unless I want
to visit Sutter again.
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