Leave the Light On

by Jennifer Storm

25

  UNEXPECTED THEATRICS

  AFTER SPRING SEMESTER ENDED, I DECIDED TO TAKE summer classes since I really had nothing else to do. These classes were held during the day, which was different for me because I was so used to going to night classes with older students. I had heard summer classes weren’t as hard. They were usually condensed due to the time constraints of summer, and the class sizes were much smaller, so it seemed to be a good idea to take a class I thought was going to be really hard. So I scheduled another math course, this one nonremedial.

  I enjoyed being on campus during the day—it made me feel more like a “real” student, as opposed to this person who just snuck onto campus at night. I once again restructured my meetings around my classes. There were so many meetings in town that this was easy to do, and it also forced me to mix up my meetings, which is always a good thing to do in recovery. Sometimes going to the same meetings over and over again can become a bit boring as ultimately you end up hearing from the same people often. I made sure I was still making at least four to five meetings a week. I knew that just because I was starting to have this great new life, it was because of recovery that I had it, and if I wanted to keep this new life, I needed to maintain my attendance in meetings. It was hard balancing my schedule, my new friends, and meetings, but I did it.

  By that time I had decided to major in rehabilitation education, because it seemed practical to become a drug and alcohol counselor and try to help others. At that point in my recovery I hadn’t quite come into my own, and I was still very much in the mind-set that I had to listen to others because my thinking wasn’t always the best way to go. I was trying to make the right decisions, the practical ones, and the ones that made sense to the majority of those around me, as this was still a part of my recovery process.

  Originally I had wanted to major in communications and minor in theater. Acting had always been something I wanted to pursue, and I thought communications would be a great avenue for me. My parents weren’t too thrilled with my choices. My father didn’t understand how I could obtain a good job with those concentrations and worried that I would struggle upon graduation. I took what he said into consideration, even though my dreams were more in line with my first choice.

  After meeting with my academic advisor, I knew I could complete my degree in three and a half years as long as I didn’t take any random courses that didn’t count. I knew I wanted to get my degree as quickly as possible, so I was not going to take any courses that didn’t fit into my requirements for my major. In addition to the math class, I enrolled in a theater class and was so excited to try out acting. I was only able to take a certain number of electives and chose this class to be one of them. I had always harbored a deep desire to be an actress; for whatever reason, I just knew I would be a natural.

  I had made a ritual out of watching award shows. I took them very seriously. I had rules: I had to be alone; a bowl of popcorn was my chosen dinner always (can’t be bloated for the Oscars); and I had to have at least one bottle of wine, if not two, on standby. I would switch the program on in giddy anticipation. I loved watching the stars arriving in their glamorous outfits and walking the red carpet with such grace and style, all while waving like princesses at the adoring fans. I would practice my wave, my walk, and how I would stand and pose for pictures while saying, “Oh yes, isn’t it lovely? It’s Armani.” I would guess the winner of each award and shout it out in eager delight as the presenter usually confirmed my assertion. Then I would stand, usually half in the bag at this point, holding my empty wine bottle as a microphone and droning my acceptance speech into my empty living room. It was all glam and drama, and I was drawn to that like butter to popcorn.

  Just as I had suspected, even without the wine bottle mike, I was a natural in the class and fell in love with acting in a way I knew I would.

  As summer gave way to fall, I started to see State College as my home. In Pennsylvania, fall is a breathtaking sight to see. Rolling hills quickly turn from bright, green patches of broccoli-like form to a virtual harvest of yellows, oranges, and reds. Leaves fell all around and swished and crunched under my feet as I zigzagged through campus from class to class. The brisk air felt incredible on my skin. It was my favorite type of weather, when jeans and a sweatshirt are the only reasonable choice and provide such incredible warmth that any thoughts of the summer sun on your skin are left far behind.

  I felt I could stand tall and walk proud. I adjusted well to the day classes and decided to continue scheduling my classes that way. I wanted to fully embrace what being a student felt like. The energy on campus in the beginning of fall was amazing, all hustle and bustle, and I truly felt like a part of the college scene when I sat down in my first 200-person lecture. I made sure I sat up front at every class to ensure I paid attention. I knew I needed to in order to do well. The classes I took were fun and made me use parts of my brain that I hadn’t accessed in years. I was getting good grades and enjoying the challenges.

  One day I was sitting in biology class, listening attentively, when all of a sudden the walls around me began to close in and my breath got shallow. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but my senses grew very sharp and my chest tightened. It reminded me of the night I took the ginkgo biloba. I quickly realized I was in the throes of a panic attack. I had to get out of the room. I somehow managed to get out of my seat, got down the hall, and slumped into a bathroom stall. I sat on the toilet with my mind spinning, trying to even my breathing and calm myself down. It was overwhelming. I was sweating. It hit me like a freight train, and intuitively I began to pray. I prayed the Serenity Prayer over and over again, asking for God’s help. As I did, my pulse slowed, my breath returned to normal, and my shoulders lowered from my ears where they had taken up residence. I sat there for a couple of minutes, gathering myself. I felt exhausted.

  I hated the panic attacks. I knew they were common for many in recovery, but I had only had that one the time I took the gingko biloba. It made me feel like I did when I used, which then left me feeling oddly remorseful, as though I had used—which I knew was crazy because I hadn’t. It was my disease messing with me.

  After I shared it with my sponsor and in a meeting that night, I was reassured that once again, it was just a normal part of recovery. Sometimes our disease pops up in random ways and takes over. It was one of those moments when it was just me and my higher power, and thankfully I had enough of a connection to calm myself down and get through the moment.

  26

  FLASHBACK: TRAUMA AND BLACKOUT

  I WAS BEGINNING TO HAVE PAIN IN MY BACK AND stomach. It would come on gradually and leave me feeling bloated. The pain was dull and constant. It felt like I couldn’t have stretched my back enough to release the pain. I went to the health clinic on campus located in Ritenour Building, which was dubbed the “wait-an-hour” for its constant long line of ailing students with no health insurance waiting to be seen. After I waited more than an hour to be seen, the staff told me it was probably gas or indigestion and it would pass. Several more visits, X–rays, and an external ultrasound showed nothing.

  As the first snow hit the ground, the pain persisted and got worse. I felt bloated all the time—like I had the worst case of PMS you could imagine. Several times it became so uncomfortable that I went to the emergency room in the local hospital. Each time I went, the doctors would push on my belly and tell me I had gas. This was beginning to annoy the shit out of me because I knew it wasn’t gas. Gas doesn’t last months. Every time, they attempted to give me a prescription for Vicodin to help ease the pain, and every time, I would politely remind the doctor that I was in recovery. By the third and fourth times, this was annoying me because I knew it was written down in my chart—I had insisted it be written down the second time they attempted to hand me a script. After the fourth time, I walked out of the ER. I was frustrated and confused and started to feel helpless. Every doctor I went to seemed like a past dealer trying to ignore the evidence that something was seriously
wrong with me by simply medicating it. I tried to ignore it and cope with the pain, but it was so bad at times.

  One night at a restaurant with some of my college friends, I doubled over in pain. They immediately rushed me to the hospital. When I was finally admitted, the doctors were once again baffled. One friend who was with me knew how frustrated I had been because of no one seriously helping me. So she became my medical advocate, demanding that I be seen and examined thoroughly while reminding them that I was in recovery and couldn’t be given any narcotics. She was my guardian angel that day, the protector of my recovery. I was sore, tired, and traumatized.

  The doctors once again wanted to send me home with a pain prescription and a diagnosis of gas. After my friend and I pleaded with them, insisting that I had more than gas, the doctors finally decided to perform an internal ultrasound on me.

  The internal ultrasound was horrible. It was like being raped by Darth Vader. They take a large wand and put a huge condom over it, squish out some lube onto the tip, and insert the wand into your vagina. They then begin to thrust it around in there while pushing down on your stomach. It is horrifically humiliating and painful, and also retraumatizing for anyone who has ever been sexually violated. They should really attempt to get some form of sexual history from women before they do this procedure, because it could send the most rational of people into a pitfall of posttraumatic stress reactions. I focused on the popcorn ceiling and prayed quietly in my head, and after what seemed like hours of probing, the technician spotted some fluid on the screen and made the quick assessment that my appendix had burst and I needed immediate surgery to remove it.

  I was rushed into a surgical room where people began swirling around me, taking blood, poking and prodding me in preparation for surgery. I was freaked out! I was pretty certain my appendix hadn’t burst, even though I had no past experience to back up this hunch. I knew my problem was deeper; it was more chronic. But I was also relieved that a sense of urgency was finally surrounding me, because I had felt certain that something major was happening with me.

  As they were rushing to get me into surgery, an aide was attempting to put an IV into my arm. I informed her that I had freakishly small veins and was historically a hard stick. She blew me off by saying that she was a professional. She was rude. I was pissed. She pricked me once, no go, and then twice, still nothing, then she wiggled the needle around in my arm until I screamed in pain. She was flustered. After the sixth plunge into my flesh, I’d had it. I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Get out!” as I pulled my sore, throbbing arm away from her grip. Her eyes widened and she rushed out of the room.

  I knew I was out of hand, but I just couldn’t stand one more needle stick into my bruised skin. All of this was too overwhelming. Everyone in the room came to an abrupt halt. I was shunned by the rest of the medical staff, and at that point I didn’t care. Instead of all these strangers in white coats scurrying about, I just wanted my parents. I wanted someone who felt remotely loving around me, reassuring me that I was going to be okay.

  A few minutes later my friend was at my side holding my hand and laughing quietly to herself. “You sure told that bitch,” she said. I laughed as some of my tension eased.

  Quickly another aide was brought in, and I could tell by her no-nonsense facial expression that she was here on business. She asked my friend to step aside and introduced herself and said she was there to try to get my IV in. I breathed in a huge, deep breath and looked away while she expertly slid in the IV. “See, that was no big deal, was it?” she asked. A tear ran down my cheek as I thanked her. I was exhausted by emotions. I asked to phone my parents, and when my dad picked up I began to sob. I told them I was being rushed into emergency surgery for what they thought was my appendix bursting. My parents were worried and asked me to call as soon as I could. My father had a big meeting scheduled the next day and wasn’t able to come up right away. He assured me it was a very routine surgery that doctors do all the time and that I would be fine. I hung up feeling a little better.

  My friend was told she had to leave the room while they prepped me for surgery. They mentioned the word catheter, and I freaked. I had never had one of those, but I’d heard they were really painful. They made me drink a huge bottle of a liquid that tasted like total crap to prepare me for the surgery, and I would need the catheter because I would apparently be eliminating this fluid while in surgery. I had already been violated by the ultrasound, and now they wanted to shove a tube up my urethra. I was traumatized, and it hurt like hell. They pushed a needle into my IV and said it would help calm me down. Within a couple of minutes, I felt my body loosen and felt a nice wave of calm come over me. The bright lights fuzzed a bit above me, and I watched all the nurses and aides swirl around me as they prepared me for surgery. Next thing I knew, I was being pushed out of the room and down a hall toward the surgical suite. The lights were brighter there, and it was colder. They told me they had to move me onto the long metal table in the middle of the room for the surgery. As they lifted me, I felt a tugging between my legs and an intense pain as they moved me, but not my catheter bag, off the table. I screamed out in pain, and the next thing I knew someone was holding the bag and another doctor was plunging another needle into my IV. Seconds later, blackness.

  27

  FLASHBACK: DRUGS AND THE CWORD

  AFTER MY SURGERY, I HAD TO SPEND SEVEN DAYS IN the hospital. I had more tubes coming out of my body than I had ever seen—an IV, a catheter, and a tube that went up my nose, down my throat, and into my stomach. The tube would pump excess junk from my stomach out into a large machine next to my bed. My throat was so sore. Everything hurt. Still not having any diagnosis only made matters worse.

  The doctor had come in the day after my surgery and told me they had removed my appendix, and when they did, they found a large abscess on my colon the size of a softball. They had to cut it out and ended up removing a good portion of my colon as a result. He had no idea what it was, but was thinking it might be some form of cancer. I gasped. Just the word cancer sent me into flashbacks of holding my mother as she lay lifeless after her own struggle from cancer. Cancer. I rolled the word over in my brain in disbelief. Cancer at twenty-four. I began to freak out inside, thinking of how cancer had ravaged my mother’s body and killed her. I started to cry hysterically. The doctor was cold. He knew nothing of me, nothing of my story, and he didn’t understand. I felt so alone, and in that moment I wished my mother was there to comfort me. Instead I had a cold medical staff tending to me, and it only grew colder after the doctor left me with the word cancer hanging in the air like a death sentence. Just then, a stabbing pain hit my stomach. I hit the morphine button and everything went black.

  I was abruptly awakened by a nurse who was checking my vitals. I was totally out of it, having been sleeping and filled with morphine. I opened my eyes and she said, in an extremely rude voice, “You really should try and get up. The longer you wait, the harder it will be.” I was shocked. I had come out of surgery only hours ago and this nurse thought I should jump out of bed and walk around. My frustration fired up. I’d had enough of this staff; they were horrible. Forgetting the tube in my mouth, I barked back at her, but could barely talk and it just hurt more. I started crying so hard that my stomach ached from the contractions of my sobs. I was a mess. A throbbing was coming from between my legs, and my throat was killing me. I felt hopeless and defeated. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I screamed at someone and kicked her out of my room. I wasn’t usually such a bitch, but these people had zero sympathy at a time when I needed buckets of it.

  I was also very much under the influence of the morphine that kept sinking into my veins, which made everything around me fuzzy. I reached for the phone, barely noticing that it was 2:00 a.m., and I dialed my parents’ phone. By the time I heard my father’s sleepy voice pick up, I was nearly hysterical, so I just softly babbled and begged for them to please come and get me and take me home. I could barely talk, but I managed to say th
at the staff was horrible, and my nurse was like Nurse Ratched from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That made my father laugh. The sound of his laughter put me at ease a bit as he tried to reassure me once again that I would be fine and I should just try and get some sleep. They would be coming in a day or two. I hung up realizing I hadn’t told him about the cancer. I pushed the button on the morphine again and went back to sleep.

  I woke up the next day with a very dry and horrible taste in my mouth. The tube hurt so badly that I cried almost every hour. I could only have ice chips, and those were few and far between, so that my stomach would heal. Seconds after I would suck on an ice cube, I would see black fluid fly up the tube from my stomach, through my nose, and into the machine. It was both horrifying and amusing. It became a little trick I would do for everyone who came to visit me.

  I was also still hooked up to a morphine drip, which freaked me out. The first day or two, I hit that button like the good addict I was. I was in pain. My abdomen had just been torn open. I needed it. But by day three, as I started to become more aware and mobile, I started to feel weird about it. My recovery instincts kicked in, and I asked for its removal. I explained to the doctor that I was in recovery and felt it was no longer needed. He eyed me skeptically, but respected my decision and ensured me that if I was in pain, I could immediately call the nurse and get some Vicodin. I told him that would not be necessary. I was never a pill popper in my addiction history, but I was smart enough to know that a drug is a drug and that I have an addiction. I didn’t want anything to jeopardize my recovery.

  The thought of losing the time I had built up in recovery crushed my chest inward in a way that was more painful than the staples in my stomach. I couldn’t imagine myself having to walk back into the rooms of recovery and get a twenty-four-hour chip again, or looking my new friends in the eye and knowing I had let them down. The thought of my parents’ disappointment was too much for me to bear. And lastly, the idea of letting my new higher power down in that way was intense for me. I was still in the process of figuring out what my higher power was, but on a daily basis I was praying to my God. I could not handle the idea of turning my back on God again as I had done so often in my addiction. My mind had been too informed at this point in recovery to throw it all away. I had a new definition of pride and ego in recovery, and they were strong protectors of my new way of life.