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157 Sick and in Need of Healing In spring 2003, I became very ill. At first, I thought it was a bad case of the flu. After feeling very sick at work, I left for the day hoping to get better at home. I went to a drugstore to get some flu medicine. I distinctly remember standing in an aisle, looking for the difference between product A and product B, when I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen. Feeling faint, I paid for my things and went home to sleep. By the third day, I could barely walk and I could not stand erect. Since I had not been able to relieve myself for at least three days (which is not normal for me), my stomach was completely distended and the pain was excruciating . I called in sick to work and asked my boss not to fire me because I was missing so much work. Being a friend, my boss was more concerned with my well-being and asked what she could do for me. Since I could barely stand, I told her I desperately needed a shower and asked if she could come to my house and help me get in and out of the shower. Both my manager and direct supervisor came over to help me. At a glance, they both decided I needed to go to the doctor. I was way too weak to resist. As soon as my doctor saw me, he was alarmed. He did a few checks on me, but sent me directly to the emergency room where I was admitted with an unknown diagnosis. After many tests, the doctors concluded that I had a bowel obstruction, though it was a nurse friend of mine who first determined that the root issue was endometriosis. The endometriosis caused cysts in my lower abdomen. One of those cysts had burst and become infected. As the Healing Introspections Reaching Inside and Reconstructing Myself Rosa María Hernández Juárez 158 · Rosa María Hernández Juárez infection spread, it somehow pinched my intestine into closing, something like when you bend a garden hose to stop the flow of water. With a course of antibiotics, the infection in my lower abdomen abated and I was able to move my bowels, though barely, and I was sent home from the hospital. It had been quite a scare, since I had never been in a hospital my entire life. I was certainly scared and so were my family and friends. Everyone had rallied around me, and I felt deeply comforted by that. When I was discharged, I really thought it was all over. Yet even though I was supposed to be better, somehow I was not. Eating became a painful chore. I clearly remember when a friend brought food over for me and I spent about ten minutes eating a small piece of onion about the size of a dime. I must have cut that piece about three times when I realized it does not take that long to eat so little. That night, by the grace of God, I had a houseguest. At about one in the morning, I began to vomit violently . My guest called my best friend and asked her to take me to the hospital . By the time my friends arrived, I was feeling very faint and everything seemed to blur. I went in and out of consciousness and began to see things in a strobe-light rhythm as I closed and opened my eyes to catch the important details of what was happening. I opened my eyes and my friends were at my house carrying me up the stairs to the sidewalk. I clearly remember telling one of my friends that I was really scared. I just remember her saying that I should be more afraid of not going to the hospital. Next I was in the ER in a wheelchair and I was given a bucket to throw up in—which I thought was ridiculous since I had not eaten in days, piece of onion notwithstanding, and I had already been throwing up for what felt like hours. During the intake part of my ER visit, the nurse did not seem very impressed by me. Suddenly, I threw up in the bucket with a loud splash. I did not even open my eyes until one (or all) of my friends shrieked and asked if I had just thrown up blood...

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