Girl on the Edge

by Kim Hodges

  My mother seemed satisfied. She thanked him for putting up with me in hospital. I sat there stunned. I wanted everything to be over. I felt a fool; angry with myself. I thought that this hospital visit would fix everything and bring me closure. But no, I was in the big ordeal again. Discharged from hospital, I rode the ninety minutes home in the car with my mother in silence. The Higher School Certificate was looming, potentially shaping the rest of my life. The pending surgery at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney to remove the majority of my thyroid gland was scheduled for four days afterward. The operation required six weeks recovery time. I was going to go on being held captive by my family for much longer than I felt like I could endure. Only after all of that would I be able to get on with my life as an eighteen year old.

  *

  My day-to-day life became ruled by medication. The side effects were quite severe due to the high dosage that I had to take over the months leading up to my surgery. In the evenings, I had to stay awake till 10 P.M. to take my last dose of medication, having already taken it first thing in the morning and again straight after school. Every day, the medication made me feel nauseous. For the first two weeks I went to bed with a container and towel—just in case. I was prescribed anti-nausea tablets. My mother controlled and administered this concoction of tablets, presenting them in a small clear medicine container, accompanied by a glass of water. I noticed that she stayed in my room to watch me swallow the tablets. I would have anyway as I preferred this slower state to my hyperactive one. But I still felt sick.

  The medication regulated my sleep patterns, so that I managed to get eight hours sleep. Getting out of bed in time for school was still difficult because I was slow and dopey from the drugs. I dragged myself up anyway, got dressed, had breakfast and usually made it to school just before the bell. The incentive was to avoid a reprimand from the teachers or being sent to the deputy principal’s office again. Although I felt slower—sluggish and at times sleepy, rather than wired, hyper-vigilant and alert—at school everything improved. The class bans were lifted and I attended all of my classes. I could learn again, as my mind calmed and gained clarity. I could sit still for a forty minutes lesson and read a passage without my mind jumping recklessly and my body twitching. I absorbed information that teachers presented to the class.

  But I knew that I had missed chunks of work. There were big gaps, whole chapters, topics, science experiments, maths formulas and text passages missing. I had missed a year of learning, but I tried desperately to catch up and fill in the gaps. It was impossible to catch up on one year’s work in two months. The timeframe was too small for the giant task. So I let go of the missing chunks and big gaps and instead focused on what was in front of me. My brain switched on to the tasks at hand and my love for learning consumed me. My hands had stopped shaking, my pulse eased, and my mind settled, as I prepared for the trial Higher School Certificate examination. I tried my hardest, but did poorly. I had been right about not being able to catch up in time. Now I had only two months until the actual Higher School Certificate exams. I gave it my best shot. I studied like crazy for two months. But I knew that it would not suffice to provide me with the marks that I wanted. I finished my last exam. My heart sank as I recognised I may have failed the Higher School Certificate. I was terrified of being trapped in that family and town.

  Seven students at my school finished year twelve on November 11th 1983. Two days later was our muck-up day. There were water fights, outrageous dressing up, mimicking of teachers, cars doing doughnuts in the school car park and taunting of the secondary students. It was lots of fun. The headmaster had banned smoking, drinking alcohol, and other risky activities, before and during muck-up day. We risked expulsion should we indulge in any of them. Rumours might also tarnish our reputations forever. All seven of us decided against jeopardising any other student’s prospects of getting a local job so we all behaved. Being inconspicuous on any day in Coolah was difficult let alone on muck-up day, but we managed. Fellow students, teachers and townies all knew each other’s movements—even if a person spent the day indoors, or sick, someone would know—a neighbour, a passer-by or the postie.

  After muck-up day, the senior students all met at the pub at 3 P.M. for one last gathering and a drink. School was finally over. Although I was just over eighteen years of age, I ordered a lemon squash. I did not like alcohol. I had waited years for this day. I toasted with my lemon squash, happy and relieved. I looked around, feeling that it wouldn’t bother me to ever see any of my fellow classmates again. I was the only one heading to Sydney, even though I had no idea what I was going to do there. I had an aunty there. That was all. None of my close friends were in my year. The twins were in the year below me, Anthony had been in the year above, and Kathy Waite’s family had left town. A couple of my other friends had gone to boarding school in late primary school or mid-secondary school, and I had lost contact with them.

  I was ready to walk out and be free of Coolah Central School. The state education leash around my neck was undone and the second leash, my life with my mother, was soon to be. My life would begin once I left this town and my family for good. Glen drove me back to school from the Bottom Pub, to collect my heavy bag. I planned to get a lift home with my mother. When we arrived in the school car park, I opened the car door, leaving my fingers on the inside of the door, as I got out and thanked Glen for the lift. He leant over and slammed the car door. The door caught my finger directly below a nail. The throbbing pain was unbearable. My mother took me to Dr Desmond for the last time. She insisted that I have a shower beforehand, as usual, even with my bandaged finger dripping blood everywhere. I was not sure why I needed to shower, but it was easier than resisting. My mother showered too, applied fresh lipstick and dressed in one of her best outfits. As we got into the car, I began to feel nervous.

  “Remember Kim, he’s a doctor. You must be on your best behaviour” mother reminded me.

  I rolled my eyes. Silence was my way of surviving these excursions with my mother. She smiled and greeted Dr Desmond. Her respectful responses pandered to his God complex. My nail needed to be taken off. I did not care what Dr Desmond did to me now, he had already hurt me with his words a few months earlier. I did not speak to, or look at Dr Desmond during the procedure—not when he gave me a local anaesthetic, not when he cut off my nail and not when he bandaged it. My disdain for Dr Desmond stopped me from offering the hello, head nod, or thank you that I had been trained to provide. As I walked out of his surgery I smiled inwardly about that. The ordeal was not spoken of, nor my impending surgery. I copped an earful for my disrespectful behaviour as we walked to the car.

  “I hate him!” I yelled those three words.

  I held back on the swear words swirling around my mouth. How could my mother be nice to him after what he had done to me? There was no use even going there. A code of silence surrounded the big ordeal. It was taboo, to protect me from revisiting it. With my arm in a sling I walked on, past our car. As my mother drove off, I could hear the cursing directed at me. I ignored it, looking straight head. I walked home in peace.

  *

  My operation closed in on me as the Higher School Certificate experience gradually faded. My mother and I left for Sydney two days after my muck-up day, to prepare for my surgery at Royal North Shore Hospital. Just get through the operation and worry about what comes next later, I convinced myself. One thing I knew for certain, I was leaving Coolah the moment I recovered. Leaving to do what, who knew? To live? Nobody knew, least of all me. It was a long trip, driving the six hours to Sydney with my mother, in our Ford Falcon. She was being particularly nice to me. I withdrew: it was not the natural order of things between us. She had bought a new outfit for the trip, a crimson blazer and skirt that had been on special in Dubbo. I took a pillow from the back seat and rested my head against the window, to daydream and doze and to avoid making small talk. Memories came back of Coolah District Hospital and the ambulance trip to Dubbo Base Hospital. Now, I would
visit a third hospital, a Sydney one. As our car travelled in and out of the daylight, shadows cast by Sydney’s endless suburban sprawl rolled over me. I had an urge to cry. Is the nightmare over or am I still in it? But I dared not cry.

  Royal North Shore Hospital reached so very high up into the sky. The day before the surgery, we had an appointment with the endocrinologist to sign paperwork and for a general medical check-up. I was over eighteen, so I signed the consent forms. My surgeon drew a picture of a thyroid, made an incision with a sharp pencil, and shaded the two thirds of my thyroid gland that was to be removed.

  “The operation will take around four hours. Do you have any questions?” he asked, looking at me. I shook my head.

  No brochure, flyer, or book for me to read on thyroid function had been suggested. I had a hand-drawn pencil picture, on a small piece of white paper. There was no session with a counsellor, talk with a relative, or a friend, to help me make sense of the sixteen months of hyperactivity, the assault on my body and mind, or the effects on my family. I felt ill-prepared and in denial about the operation. I had never met a person who had had their thyroid removed. That night, I lay awake for hours at my auntie’s, on my made-up bed on the floor, worrying about the operation and wanting to change my mind. I woke up exhausted.

  We drove to the hospital at 7 A.M. No eating and drinking for me. Neat and tidy, with my hair clipped back, at my mother’s request, I felt a dry wrenching sensation, from nervousness. As I left my auntie’s, that feeling intensified the closer we got to the car park at Royal North Shore Hospital. We went up to the twelfth floor of the hospital, where cheerful nurses greeted us. A bed was ready, even though we had arrived two hours early. My single room had a view of the harbour bridge. The staff informed me that I was lucky to have this room. I encouraged my mother to go and get a coffee, so that I could get into a white gown and pull the sheet up and rest it between my mouth and nose. I watched television for hours, while my mother read the paper, or her Mills & Boon book. The television filled the void between us. I constantly checked my watch. Two o’clock was approaching. Kind-faced nurses came and went from my room. My mother chatted to each one. I remained silent, while she performed for them.

  A nurse came in with a final checklist to prepare me for surgery. I lowered my gown and she washed my neck, sterilising it with a brown disinfectant. Fear and panic set in; I was about to have a major operation. Actually, my neck would be cut open. The knowledge hit me like a boulder landing on my chest, I realised I wasn’t ready; I didn’t know anything about it. The nurse explained that twelve staples in my neck would secure the wound, which would need to be removed two weeks later at Dubbo Base Hospital. My mind did somersaults again; I just wanted out of this room, this hospital, my family and my life. I didn’t want an operation. I couldn’t take any more. I didn’t deserve to have my neck cut open. None of this was my fault.

  “I have changed my mind,” I said to the two nurses.

  “Pardon?” one of the two nurses replied.

  “I don’t want to have this operation,” I said, deliberately remaining calm.

  “You have to,” said my mother. I got out of the bed and reached for the ties at the back of the gown. I wanted to get dressed and leave.

  “Okay, give me a moment, and I’ll see what we can do. Just sit on the bed,” said the nurse who had started trying to calm me. The other nurse quickly left. Thinking that I would be allowed to leave soon, I sat on the bed. She soon returned with a small plastic tray.

  “You need to lie down and go through with the operation,” she grabbed my leg and the other nurse grabbed my arms.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I yelled. The nurses held me firmly and a needle went into my leg.

  “This will relax you,” the nurse said, as they held onto me. Almost immediately, my body went limp. Their hands lowered me into a horizontal position. Heaviness, as the boulder increased its size, secured me to the bed.

  “All the consent forms have been signed. You need this operation,” one nurse assured me.

  My mother stood by the window. I didn’t even look at her. No comforting words had left her lips. My head floated up and I looked down on myself. I watched, as another needle entered my leg, given by the white-coated doctor who had joined the two nurses. This doctor then located a vein in my right arm, inserted a cannula and then secured it with tape, so that a drip could be attached to my arm.

  “You’re going to be okay,” a nurse smiled, placing her hand on my shoulder.

  Incoherent words swirled in my mind. I had lost. I could not get up and leave. The cutting open of my neck was now inevitable. Two wards-men greeted me and then wheeled my bed out of my room. My mother gave my forehead a kiss on the way past, similar to the cheek kiss she had bestowed as I left for Dubbo Base Hospital.

  The overhead lights in the corridor whirled. We went down a lift and along another corridor that felt as if it would never end. With my file and clipboard on my bed, my arms and legs without sensation, I finally felt peaceful. Light-headedness engulfed me. We entered a sterile room, with lights, machines and doctors and nurses in masks. The cutting of my neck edged closer. An anaesthetist introduced himself and a familiar face, Professor Sherwood, assured me that I would be fine and that he would see me after the operation. “Count back from ten,” said the anaesthetist. I did, in my head, my lips moved slightly but no sound escaped them. Heavy eyed. Gone.

  I woke up propped up high in the bed, machines attached to me. Sore and stiff, I had tubes in my mouth and an oxygen mask on. Nurses’ faces peered over me. Gone.

  I woke up again.

  “You’re in recovery,” said a nurse. Heavy eyed. Gone again.

  The next time I woke up and stayed awake. My eyes scanned the room. I saw machines and monitors with lights, busy nurses, and ten or so beds with sick people in them.

  “Stay awake. Try not to move,” a voice told me. My oxygen mask was removed from my mouth, “Try and breathe for me.” I noticed an inability to swallow and that I sat taller than every other patient there. “Be stable for thirty minutes and we can move you out of recovery into the observation ward,” the nurse said, placing the oxygen mask back on.

  When I woke up in the observation ward some time later, two wards-men wheeled me back along the long corridor and into the elevator to go up to my room. My mother looked at my neck. A deep sleep took me. Once I had woken again, a nurse encouraged me to sip from a cup of water, just to wet my mouth. I felt intense pain.

  “Mirror, please,” I whispered.

  “Are you sure?” the query had surprised the nurse.

  I nodded slightly. She fetched one and held it up. My eyes saw the thick choker of staples holding together two flaps of skin. The staples went from one end of my neck to the other, in a shapely curve, covered in brown antiseptic. There were two tubes at either end, draining fluid into the bags clipped onto the side of my bed. I was shocked and in disbelief at the length and width of it. The cutting of my neck was complete and successful. I was told that once I was home, after six weeks recovery, plus a final check-up at Dubbo Base Hospital, life would go back to normal. Nothing felt normal to me and it hadn’t done for such a long time. Three more days in hospital, then I watched as my tubes were removed. I started to eat and drink again, to shower. I waited for clearance to go home. The long trip was jerky, my mother grinding the gears. Three pillows supported my neck, sitting up high in the passenger seat. First, second and third gear, and back again and then she would hit the brakes. I was jolted forward, wondering if the skin of my wound was separating. Sydney driving sparked her road rage. The wrongdoings were everyone else’s fault. I closed my eyes pretending to be asleep for most of the trip.

  Two weeks later, the twelve staples were removed. It hurt a lot; some of the staples had sunk deep into my skin. I had four weeks still to rest. I went to bed early and sat up reading with my three pillows supporting my head. I appeared quiet and withdrawn to my family. I was busy plotting the day I was to leave C
oolah for Sydney.

  The Higher School Certificate envelope was to arrive in a few days. I cringed, as I already knew what was written on the letter inside it. My Higher School Certificate exam result, a mark out of five hundred, was delivered by the postie lady. Nervously I opened the envelope. The aggregate number, typed in black ink, was well below two hundred and fifty. I had failed. I found out later that the six other students from my class had all failed too. How did all of us get below two hundred and fifty marks? My heart sank and disappointment clouded over me. The principal had predicted that not one of us would ever go to university. I could have done a lot better if I had not missed a year’s content. Panic set in. How was I going to leave Coolah and make a life for myself with a fail? How could I ever get a job with such a poor result? I was interested in nursing, but I needed to obtain at least a pass. I hadn’t even achieved this.

  Emotionally I had left Coolah and my family years earlier. But six weeks after my surgery, three days after my check-up, I left Coolah and my family physically. I packed my bags and organised a lift to Sydney with a local parent who was travelling down to see her son. My parents and two brothers waved to me as I departed. My other brother had left home at the end of year ten to start an apprenticeship in Cobar.

  chapter twenty-four

  A NEW IDENTITY AND LIFE

  I was dropped off at my aunty, uncle and two nephews’ modest home in West Ryde, Sydney. Beautiful home-cooked meals and two weeks accommodation, plus an ultimatum, all provided. I only had two weeks, so I moved fast; staying any longer than that was not negotiable. I got a job as a nursing assistant in a nursing home, as the second week loomed. My father drove to Sydney to help move one suitcase and myself to my first share house with three university students in the inner city of Sydney. My father and I went shopping to buy household items such as sheets, doona and towels that I paid for out of my own savings. As my father drove away, I mentally put the memories of the big ordeal in the car with him, so that he could take them back to Coolah. At that moment I felt so alone, but I shook it off, and assured myself that the adventure of life had just begun for me. Sydney was my new home and I was here to stay. There was no backtracking now.