Science- I used to go to the hospital all the time as a kid with hereditary multiple exostoses.
- At 19, I decided to stop going to the hospital. I wasn't OK, but I wanted to live with my condition.
Every minute, a wave of electricity shot through me. I was 16, and laying down in a hospital bed, being electrocuted in 60-second intervals. The doctors wanted to make sure that my nerves could register pain.
I winced at each jolt, but smiled through the pain. It hurt, but it was life.
My mom, on the other hand, was sobbing as she watched me from the opposite side of the room. I tried to console her, telling her through each jolt that I was fine.
Growing up, the hospital was my second home
I have hereditary multiple exostoses (HME), a rare condition that meant I was born with extra lumps of bones. It mainly affected my legs, as my feet were turned inward and I couldn't walk for long. As a result, I spent a lot of my childhood in hospitals.
I've been going to the hospital ever since I could remember, and knew the layout by heart. The blue floors and the antiseptic smell were familiar to me. I practically grew up with the staff, who I had known since I was seven.
I had endless appointments that involved physiotherapy, MRI scans, CT scans, and pain therapy. The doctors would try every method possible to help — leg braces, personalized insoles, and two ankle surgeries when I was 14. These methods helped, but they didn't cure me.
The treatment for HME is typically the surgical removal of painful or uncomfortable growths that can make it hard to move, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Another treatment option in children is hemiepiphysiodesis, a growth-plate surgery that can correct misalignment in future growth. I had the latter option when I was 14, where doctors screwed a plate on each ankle to straighten my feet as I grew older.
When I moved away for college, I left hospital appointments behind
The cycle of hospital appointments continued until I was 19. As I was moving away for college, I decided to try and live with my condition.
In the beginning, I loved not going to the hospital every week. It felt great to have more free time.
But still, every step hurt. I had little coordination. I had to skip meeting with friends as I was withering in bed, trying to cope with it all.
I moved back home after I finished college. At 23, I decided I should probably get checked out.
Going back to the hospital as an adult felt different
After years, I went back to the hospital as an adult. But this time, it didn't feel like home. The air was oppressive and the same blue ward was scary.
On my first hospital visit in years, the doctor touched my legs a few times, then told me I needed to immediately get two X-rays and then report back to him. I was filled with dread when he confirmed I actually had a problem. The X-rays showed that one of my extra bones had become more prominent, and made my mobility worse.
The second I put on hospital robes, I started crying uncontrollably. By not going to the hospital, I tricked a part of me into thinking I was actually okay. Everyone's in pain sometimes, right?
Staring at myself in the mirror, it told me the truth — I was still ill. Seven-year-old me would've shrugged her shoulders, but at 23 I was in painful disbelief.
And so the cycle of hospital appointments resumed. Every three weeks, I go to the hospital for an MRI scan or CT scan so the doctors can check on my bones.
I recently went for a full-body MRI scan that would determine where the lumps of bones in my knees were. As I was strapped into a coffin-like contraption and then put in a small hole while the machine blared out deafening sounds, my heart was beating rapidly and I felt breathless.
This was a walk in the park for me as a child, but as an adult I was trying to stop myself from having a panic attack. I ultimately got it together, but leaving the hospital that day made me realize that I was braver as a child than as an adult.
As a kid, having numerous doctors tell me how ill I was didn't faze me. Having surgery and relearning how to walk was okay. Being electrocuted in minute-long intervals was a part of my life I'd gotten used to.
Yet 23-year-old me broke down the second she saw herself in a hospital robe. Now, I have a newfound respect for children — a lot of the time, they're more fearless than adults.