Off My Chest (hur hur)

I haven't let myself think or talk about illness, as I didn't want to tempt fate. But I'm feeling pretty confident now that it's not an issue.

Today I found something I've been trying to find for weeks. I remembered writing it, but couldn't remember what I'd done with it. Turns out it was on an old computer.

Well, anyway. I'm not sure why I feel the need to publish it, but I do. I suppose I feel like I'm drawing a line under it. Like I'm allowed to let it out now, because it's in the past.

This is the only thing I managed to write during my last pregnancy. Words made me feel ill, and I had to type it without looking at the screen, but on this particular day I felt the need to express some of what I was going through. I remember feeling dissatisfied with it afterwards. It didn't really do a good enough job of conveying how I felt. I managed to read it through once, and then I had to go lie down, throw up, all that stuff.

We'd been turned away from the hospital because they said I wasn't ill enough. But some time after this it was finally decided I WAS ill enough, and they put me on a drip. I remember this particular day, that awful yearning for someone to come and rescue me.

Oh, and another thing: My body responds very strongly to my mental state, always has done. And nausea is a symptom of anxiety, for me. And some medical professions have said that hyperemesis is a "hysterical" illness, although that view is largely discredited now. But that didn't stop me from wondering constantly whether I was somehow responsible for the predicament I was in.

Anyway, here it is:

"I,
am sick.

Of this.
Of being sick.

I take a short walk to the park.
Supposed to make me feel better.
Not a walk, though.
A shuffle.
I can’t walk any more.
I have lost the use of my legs. Practically.

When I get there, I puke on the grass.
Eyes sunken and downward-looking.
I look like a junkie.
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

I am ANGRY.
WHY?
Why do I have to go through this?
Is there any way out?
No. No way out.
But anger doesn’t help.
It ought.
A positive emotion after all.
But no, it makes me feel more sick.
Tightens my bones even more.
Tightens my throat.
That lump, in my throat, that is always there, whispering to me:
“Vomit, vomit, vomit.”
72 hours.
S e v e n t y - t w o h o u r s
of retching every hour or two.
Day and night.
No respite.
Yes, where’s the respite?
Where’s the break?
Why don’t you just GIVE IT A REST!
You?
Who?
The baby then.
But I can’t blame the baby.
Even in the depth of darkness, not that.
I can blame my body though.
Oh yes, I can blame my body.
I can blame evolution.
I can blame society, for convincing me that I want to do such an insane thing in the first place.
The propagation of the species.
For why?
For what?
Oh, it makes me sick.


I want to be put on a drip.
I want to be rescued.
I want an angel to drop down from heaven, swoop me up, take me to hospital and put me on a drip.

I’m trying to eat a dry soft roll.
That’s all.
No big deal.
But hell, it hurts to swallow.
It hurts, and it makes me retch.
Even if I manage to eat the whole thing - which will probably take me half an hour -
I’ll only throw it back up again anyway.
Why?
What’s the point?
The baby isn’t getting any nourishment.
Neither am I.
Nobody wins here.
A horrible, even malicious, reminder that there is no God.
We were not designed.
If there was a God, it would be laughing at me right now.
But no.
Not even a deity to blame.
Nobody to blame, except random chance.
The wrong molecules, doing the wrong things.
Sheer bad luck.
I am FUCKING UNLUCKY.
I have been lucky in other areas of my life.
So what.
I was LUCKY to conceive so quickly.
Ha.
Some luck.
My head is spinning.


I lie down.
I feel ill.
I want to puke.
I sit back up again.
That lump, in my throat again.
The world spins.
Nausea.
Oh, nausea.
There are no words to describe.
No words except one.
No need for any other words, for that one word says it all.
Nausea.


And maybe it’s my own stupid fault.
Not even real.
If I didn’t look so blackly upon each passing hour.
If I didn’t tense my stomach into knots with each passing pang.
If I woke up in the morning and said “Hey, it’s all going to be good today.”
If I went to bed at night and said “Tonight I’m going to sleep.”
Maybe it is only happening because I am revelling in it.
But I am not enjoying it. Oh no, I can promise that much.


Food.
I must eat food.
But each mouthful brings waves welling up and burning down my throat.
My lips have blisters from the acid of bile.
Swallowing is painful - the pH of puke that has passed there before.


I mustn’t do this to myself.


Spring rain.
Blue skies.
Flowers swaying in the breeze.
Babies…. cute…. gurgling happily…
Nah, that doesn’t work.
All right, water then.
A babbling brook chuckling to itself in the background.
Birdsong.
Love and hugs.
No, physical touch makes me feel sick.
My body and I are retreating.
Music then.
Oh, sometimes I suppose.
But so hard to get it right.
Oh, fuck it.
Nothing is good.
Everything is bad.
I CAN’T FUCKING DO THIS.
I AM NOT A MARTYR.


How does anyone ever cope?
How will I cope?
Because I have no choice.


If these were the symptoms of some fatal illness, I would want to die right now.
I wouldn’t want to live my life out like this.
God, I hope I never get cancer.
Radiotherapy does this to you too.
No brave stoic heroism in the face of insurmountable odds from this girl.
Oh no.
I am no hero.
I give in.
I don’t want to play any more.
I want to go home now.
Please?"