Well, true to form, it has officially been more than a year since I last posted anything on this blog. I have decided to abandon my old game of trying to use Shakespeare quotes as blog titles that relate to the topic of my posts, mainly because I'm really not as well-versed in Shakespeare as you might think, and quite frankly I'm out of quotes. And, well, people grow and change, and I've moved on. Out with the old, and in the with the new! (Is that a Shakespeare quote? That would be really awesome if it was....Google says no. Damn.) Moving on.
Even though I wanted to revive (Yes, revive it AGAIN. I feel like this poor blog is like a zombie that has be re-animated repeatedly by some sort of cruel voodoo wizard. Oh wait....that wizard would be me.....)this blog as a place to write funny, witty anecdotes about my life, I've decided to write a not-so-funny post tonight about a really moving encounter I had this evening that made me really stop and think. And so I wanted to share. I'll get to the funny stuff some other day.
Earlier this evening:
I'm waiting for a prescription to be filled at Shoppers, so I decide to head over to Starbucks to get a smoothie while I wait. Sitting cross-legged on the ground just outside is a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, reading a book, with a sign in front of her that says "Too smart to steal, too proud to hook", with an upturned baseball cap in front of that with a bit of small change in it. As I pass in front of her, I hear her mumble something to someone else walking by about something to eat, so I stop and ask her if she wants something from Starbucks. She grins, and says that actually she and her boyfriend, who is sitting out in front of Netropass across the street, are really trying to get enough money together for a new backpack because their old one broke, and that the only thing she really likes from Starbucks is the oat fudge bar, and she's already had like 4 of them today. I like her honesty, and really, who wants 5 oat fudge bars in one day?
"That's fair," I say. "Although I totally love the oat fudge bars too". I tell her I was planning on using debit but that I might have a bit of change, and she says every bit counts, so I dig around in my purse for a bit while we chat and she tells me that she's found the peanut butter bars that Starbucks used to sell, at a little bakery down in St. Lawrence Market. We joke about how maybe Reese's had forced Starbucks to stop selling their peanut butter bars because they wanted a monopoly on the chocolate/peanut butter market, and then I ask her if she smokes and offer her a cigarette.
"My boyfriend and I are stuck here for awhile anyway," she tells me, and explains that they bought their bus tickets to BC in advance but that they are for a specific day so they have to wait until then to leave. She tells me she is from Halifax, and he is from Toronto. She tells me a few more stories, including one about how last week a guy offered her and her boyfriend each 400 dollars to wait in line all night at Nike for these new shoes they were going to be releasing, and how when they woke up in the morning, everyone was gone, because it turned out Nike said they were just going to release them online. Then I ask her if she has plans for when they get to BC.
"Well, I'm kind of hiding from my doctors. They're supposed to cut off my leg." This isn't really anything I was expecting her to say, and when she starts to hike up her pant leg, I'm not sure what I'm expecting to see, maybe some kind of mangled, gangrenous limb, but there's nothing there except a normal-looking leg with some scars along the the front and side of her shin and knee. She points to the scars. "They took out most of the bone a few years ago." she says. "Oh." I say. "I have cellulitis," she explains, "and it's in my bloodstream. I should have dealt with it before, but I can't deal with them taking off my leg, so instead I have to have pieces taken out of my body every now and then. I'd rather that then lose my leg. How messed up is that?" I ask her what scares her about losing her leg and getting a prosthesis. She tells me she loves to roller blade. I say she could probably still do it. She says it wouldn't be the same, and I agree. She then tells me how she's had two other surgeries, one to take out a piece of flesh from her armpit area, one from her backside, both damage caused by the cellulitis. She tells me how she wishes she'd gone ahead with the original surgery, when it was just supposed to be from the shin down, or then from the knee down, because the last time she was told they have to take her leg from the hip down. She's gone in multiple times, ready to do the amputation, signed the forms, but then the next day when they come in, she's gone, because she's decided she just can't go through with it.
Every time she runs away to live on the streets, people keep telling her she just needs to do it, that she needs to suck it up because it's what needs to happen. "People don't get it," she explains to me. "I KNOW that. But I can't lose my leg." She tells me that she's holding out, waiting for her lawsuit to come through. I don't ask her what the lawsuit is for, medical-related I assume. "With the 2 million dollars, I figure SOMEONE can save my leg". She grins at me again. Somehow we end up on the topic of food again, and she asks me if I know how long it takes to eat a box of Fruit Loops one at a time. "A jumbo box, or a regular size box?" I ask her. She grins. "A big dollar store box." she answers. "Hmm...." She doesn't wait for me to guess. "Two days. And that includes throwing handfuls of them at pigeons. This is what you learn when you've lost half your teeth." She shows me that she's lost basically all of her back molars, and tells me that she's worried that the cellulitis is responsible for this as well. We talk some more. She tells me that she wishes her friends could just go with her to the hospital and handcuff her to the hospital bed so that she can't run. She says "if the police are allowed to do it, my friends should be able to." She tells me "the drugs are just a way to entertain myself in the meantime," as we both light another cigarette.
While we talk I find the therapist in me frantically searching for the right thing to say to this girl. In fact, if I'm honest, it's probably not even the therapist part of me, but the part of me that contributed to wanting to be a therapist in the first place, the part of me that wants to save people, save them from themselves, from the sadness and horror that life brings to people for no other reason than that's just what life does. I think: others have tried to convince her why she has to go through with the surgery, she's told you that's not helpful, so don't do that. I tell her it's her body, she needs to make the right choice for herself because she wants to. That she'll do the right thing for herself when the time is right. I think: help her see that she has the power to make this choice, DO SOMETHING. But in the end I realize that I can't save her. Because at the end of the day we all hold the responsibility for ourselves. Nobody can handcuff her to the hospital bed. She has to walk in and sign the forms and stay there because SHE wants to. People can support her, and hold her hand, and be with her through the ordeal. Others can talk to her about it, and listen to her pain, and help her cope, but no can tell her when it's time to take the leap of the faith and say: NOW. I'm ready. Because only she will know when she's ready.
So in the end, we stand there together in silence for a bit until she mentions that she kind of feels like a strawberry frappuccino after all. I ask her if she would like me to get one for her and she says "Yes, please." So I buy her one, with whipped cream, and then we say goodbye and I wish her luck. Because I can do that for her today. And I say thank you to her, and hope that she knows that she gave a gift to me today as well.
Good luck strawberry frappuccino girl. I hope you decide to say "Yes".
No comments:
Post a Comment