My Personal Narrative

                                                                 June 9th,2017

By Vanessa Pinto

 

It was five in the morning on a Friday, I was woken up to the sound of my dog barking. You can imagine how confused I am, I get up to let my dog in the house and all of a sudden I hear voices in my parents’ bedroom. You’re probably thinking “what’s the big deal? It’s most likely your family”. That would be the case, if it wasn’t two men speaking english with british accents. My parents do not speak english fluently, much less in a british accent. I slowly walk into the living room and yell out,  “Who’s in my house?”. I see two paramedics slowly walk out with a empty gurney. My heart drops, why were the paramedics here? I see my brother and my dad holding my mom up by her arms. They were heading outside to place my mom in the gurney. I immediately start to cry. My brother explains to me that she had collapsed at about four in the morning while she was in the bathroom.

 

I was surprised and a little angry, why didn’t anyone wake me up?  A short while passes until my Dad finally called to fill me in. My mom was getting checked out in a ER, the doctors were running tests and he said they were going to move her into an actual hospital. I was worried but also exhausted. I fell asleep to the sound of my TV at about 8 in the morning.

 

I wake up and it’s 12 in the afternoon, I call my dad to get an update. He tells me that my mom is fine but I can’t go and visit her because there’s too much chaos going on. I already had plans to go to a birthday party that day, but I didn’t know if it was appropriate for me to go while my mom was in the hospital. I ask my dad and he assured me it was okay with her and him as long as I had a friend take me. One of my close friends at the time offered to drive me.  I quickly got ready and by the time I was done, her car was in my driveway.

 

The drive lifted my spirits, my friend and I were having a funny conversation. My mind wandered off the subject of my mom. The more we talked, the less anxious I was feeling. It wasn’t a long of a drive until we were already at the destination. The party was great, we had pizza and we all watched a funny movie. My dad texted me, asking if I could tell our family in Venezuela what was going on with my mom. I sent a long voice message in spanish explaining the situation. Hours go by and it was time to go. I was a little sad to be leaving a state of no worries but it was time to visit my mom.

 

When I got home, I had decided to pack a bag for my mom. She didn’t ask me to, but I knew she would want to change out of the clothes she was wearing. I filled the bag with things I knew she would need.

 

My dad comes home telling me to get ready because we’re going to the hospital. I dress in jeans and a hoodie since I’ve heard that hospitals are relatively cold. Before I leave I make sure to feed my dog. The poor thing has been alone all day, probably worrying about my mom.  As we pile in the car, my dad tells me what exactly happened and how. Turns out my mom was feeling sick in the early hours of the morning. My dog following her to the bathroom to wait outside the door as he always does, he hears her fall. My dog starts to bark at dad to wake up. My heart is warm as I hear that my dog saved my mom’s life.  The feeling quickly went away when my dad told me what was really going on with my mom. The tests the doctors ran on her confirmed that she has a tumor in her head.

 

I immediately freeze and try to hold back my tears. The tumor wasn’t cancerous and it was medium sized, but if they didn’t remove it then she could go blind or another effect that I can’t remember.

 

When we walk into the hospital, we have to get a security clearance sticker. I walk into my mom’s room and I’m immediately grateful that I brought her a change of clothes, some toiletries, and shoes. She informs me that she has to stay the night in the hospital. I was a little sad but I expected that. My brother and I were doing our best to make her laugh and smile. Sadly, after an hour we had to leave.

 

As we exit the hospital, my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten since 2 in the afternoon. Before we go home, we stop to eat at a restaurant. We ate in silence. I zoned out the entire time I was eating, as I always do. It’s an anxiety thing I do to distract myself from what’s really going on. Or I was just bored. Who knows,

 

I was so exhausted that day that I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

 

I woke up around 8 in the morning which is rare. Everyone else in the house was still sleeping. I just read a book to pass the time.  About an an hour into reading I get a call from my mom. She asks me how I slept and I ask her the same thing. She tells me about the food they gave her and how she had to get her blood drawn at 4 in the morning. I cringed at the thought of getting my blood drawn so early.  We talked until my dad and brother woke up.

 

I hung up the phone and got dressed. I’m patiently waiting for my dad to get ready so we can go to the hospital.  In the meantime, i feed my dog and take him out for a walk. He must be so confused as to why my mom never came back after that morning he found her in the bathroom.

 

When I got home from walking, I grabbed my bag and left. The drive was quiet since I was listening to music.

 

When I enter my mom’s room, she’s laughing about something on her phone. She’s wearing the shirt I brought her yesterday. I sit down on the chair next to her and I just watch TV as she’s talking to her family on the phone. My dad says he has to go and work so I was going to stay with my mom for the day. I didn’t mind but I was hungry. We went down to the cafeteria and ate. Then it was time to go back up and stay with my mom. Not too long after I came back, my mom’s nurse walks in and informs us that she has to take an MRI. They put her in a wheelchair and I waved goodbye as they rolled her out of the room.

 

MRI’s last for about an hour. During that time, I was watching High School Musical and YouTube videos on my phone. I even fell asleep at one point. The time did not go by fast. Then, finally, the nurse rolls my mom back in the hospital room in a wheelchair.

 

Apparently my mom already got a surgery date for the tumor removal. She was discharged after we packed the bag I came in with the day before.

 

Time Jump:  Around 2 months

 

On August 26th, my mom had a successful surgery with no complications. However, she did have to stay in the hospital for about a week because her sodium levels were not balanced.  She was miserable post surgery to say the least. I stayed with her everyday until she was discharged. I still went to school but the minute the bell rang to leave I was on my way to the hospital. I did my homework there and I ate dinner there. My mom was grateful that she wasn’t alone for most of the time she was staying there.

 

My mom was discharged a week and a half later and she was not allowed to drive or to move around a lot. That put some stress on the rest of us because there were practically two people doing all of the housework, cooking, and picking me up from school. It was like this until the day before Hurricane Irma hit Orlando. My mom was getting these painful migraines. Once again I was woken up by the paramedics. My mom wanted to stay in the hospital for the hurricane in case something happened and the ambulance couldn’t get to her.

 

The hurricane wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t sick at the time. We woke up with no power and we hoped it would come back before my mom came home. With no power, I steadily got dressed. My dad asked me if I would spend the night in the hospital with her, since they have Wi-Fi and air conditioning. I agreed and packed a bag to take.

 

I  stayed the night and I tried to cheer her up. She was released about three days later. I’m so glad she overcame this and we became a lot  closer and appreciative of each other.