part 27

                                      

38

It is the next day and I wake up livid. The hurt has been replaced with anger. This is easier to deal with. I have a feeling that Travis has no recollection of what even happened. It is my fault for expecting anything at all from him. I’m a moron. I will follow through with what I started back in August. I can no longer look the other way when he f***s up. I have nothing left to give him.

I limp over to my computer and turn it on. Travis sends me a message. Just as I had expected, he doesn’t even know what I’m so upset about.

"So you’re mad at me that you couldn’t hang out with your friends and I didn’t come over"

"It was because of you that I didn’t hang out with my friends. I was waiting for you to come see me like you said you would."

"I thought you were mad. So I didn’t come over. I went to a friend’s"

"Why the hell did you make plans with me then?"

"Do you realize I had to take my cat to the veterinarian?"

"Do you realize you fucked up my entire evening? That’s actually cruel of you to do that to someone in my position."

"Okay. Next time I just won’t tell you I’m not coming over." Cute. He actually thinks there will be a next time.

"Oh good. You figured out how you can be even more of a jerk. Probably why I didn’t want to have anything to do with you back in August."

That is the last thing I send him. I deleted his contact information from my computer. I delete his cell phone number from mine.

And so there we have it ladies and gentlemen. This is the exact moment when the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel disappears. Granted, it was a very dim and flickering light... but it was a light still. There is nothing there now. Anger is replaced with hurt. My heart feels like it is literally broken. I wish the stupid thing would just go ahead and die already. But then again, saying he broke my heart will not come close to relaying how hurt I am. I basically feel like he tore my heart out of my chest and then proceeded to nuclear bomb it into smithereens. I was not even significant enough in his life for him to take a few seconds and send me a text message telling me he wasn’t coming over. I now come to the conclusion that if I were to die tomorrow, it would probably take him 5 years to realize that I am no longer kicking around.

I also realize I’m flattering myself. In five years he’ll have no idea what the hell my name is.

I know that in time Travis will start dating someone. At the risk of sounding very immature, I hope she ends up breaking his stupid little heart. He deserves it.

My parents will return home tomorrow. In a way it is good that I now know what Travis is like. I know if I didn’t I would be sitting around longing for him. Wondering what could have been. This was 13 years in the making, and now it is over. I hate myself for being so pathetic.

"We only said good-bye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black"

-Amy Winehouse-

 

 

39

My parents return from vacation, and they are exhausted and very worried about me. I explain to them that that day I had spoken on the phone with them, I had taken sleeping medication and sounded sedated. But I can explain this until I am blue in the face, because my mother replies,

"We trusted you Karina... you look green!"

I can see she thinks I am just headed down the wrong path. God knows what drugs I was taking. I will now require constant supervision. I had my stupid heart destroyed, they didn’t know this and worried about me. Now I will pay for it. I do not blame them. I am a f**k up. This is expected.

I now have the realization that my life had ended on August 13th 2010, when it fell off a balcony and died. I can no longer look at it as doctors saving my life. Nobody ‘saved’ my life. That’s dead. What exists now is something very different. I do not blame my parents. I know they see that they trusted me, I was given freedom, and I messed up as a direct result. My mangled, useless body is a direct result. I will be reminded time and time again that I am paying for my stupid mistakes, and I am not the only one who has to pay for them.

They put so much effort into leaving the Soviet Union, with big hopes and dreams of finding a good life in Canada, so I could successfully flush it down the toilet.

 

 

40

My body always hurts. Despite what Dr. Hill had predicted, my ankle has in no way gotten better. My mother finds a doctor who speaks Russian. He is a specialist in this area, and she makes an appointment with him. I don't expect anything to come out ofthis visit, I just go along with what my mother wants. While we wait, we go to a nearby clinic to have my ankle scanned. I buy the CD with the scans.

At home I insert the CD into my computer and look over the images. I am no professional, but I can see right away that something is wrong with my ankle. I can see the bones in my foot, then there is a significant amount of black space, and that is followed by the bones in my leg. I can see that something is missing. There is a lot of black space. I wait for my appointment.

The day comes, and my mother and I take "WheelsHelp" to visit the specialist about my concerns. The doctor is an older man. He is a professional in this area. He used to perform surgery when he was younger, but not anymore. He has retired from that.

He inserts the CD into his computer.

"Oh yes. There is a lot of damage. Basically you have no cartilage left."

"I have been told I have arthritis there now. A doctor operated on it a few months ago to clean out an infection and I was given antibiotics to treat it. An infection specialist told me there was no infection to begin with."

"Your ankle is swollen, so that is seen as a sign that it can be a bone infection. There are other reason for a swollen ankle. I can see from the scans there is no sign of infection."

"Well the doctor who performed the surgery and prescribed antibiotics told me that the infection needed to be killed, and my ankle would begin to heal and in time, the pain would go away, but I would no longer be able to move my foot."

"A doctor told you this?"

"Yes. This was a couple of months ago. But the pain has not subsided at all."

"Does he have a medical license?"

"Yes. He works in a hospital. He performs surgeries."

The specialist looks at me in disbelief.

"He told you this will heal? This absolutely can not heal. There is no cartilage. There are several bone fragments scattered in the area. They have broken off. There is a fracture. A significant part of the bone is dead. This can in no way heal. If he is a medical professional he should know this."

"A part of the bone is dead? Do you think this was caused by an infection."

"From what I can see, it looks like the bone sustained a massive hit. Extreme impact."

"I fell from the 7th floor back in August."

"That would do it. The bone died. Thiscould have been taken care of right away. Basically your bones should have been fused together, because they have fractured away from each other. The bone had been chipping, so there are several bone fragments that will need to be cleaned out of your ankle. The pain will not go away until this is fixed. It absolutely cannot heal on it’s own. I cannot believe a doctor told you this. And he prescribed antibiotics to fix this?"

"Yes. And then I was sent to rehab to work on it".

I have dealt with the bone infection theory for months now. Every doctor who sees that the ankle is swollen, quickly assumes that it must be a bone infection and ignores the actual problem. I realize now that this is a classic text book answer, and I am the one who had paid for it dearly.

This man unfortunately no longer performs surgeries, so after some looking around with a family doctor, I book an appointment with a surgeon who specializes in this area. It is a long wait for him to just see me. I have a strong feeling that when I do see him, he will tell me that I probably have a bone infection. I do not get my hopes up anymore. I wait. I see no end to this.

I begin to reflect back on my relationship with doctors. I do know that doctors take a Hippocratic oath. I am not familiar with it. What they seem to have done is label and group me, then label and group me again. It took months for me to see a psychiatrist, who quickly saw the obvious; I was not psychotic after all. So the antipsychotic medication was discontinued.

I did however experience severe brain damage. According to the textbooks, I no longer have any ‘problem solving skills,’ along with many other deficiencies. Never mind that I haven’t really been exhibiting many of these. The text books say... It’s better to stay on the ‘safe side’ and just group me in with patients who speak to walls, and have no idea where they are or who they are. Is that what the oath asks of them? Doctors are to label patients and group them off? According to them, brain damaged people belong with brain damaged people.

I am almost positive that slowly torturing a patient with unnecessary antibiotic treatments is the opposite of what a doctor should be doing. Either Dr. Hill did not take the Hippocratic oath, or he kept his fingers crossed as he was taking it, because he has proven to be a very cruel individual.

Out of curiosity I decide to do a quick search on the internet to find out a little about the anti-psychotic drug that was given to me. I have the name of it written down, and have no trouble locating information about it online.

I look through the list of side effects. One of the first things on that list:

"May cause dizziness"

 
"I must have died alone
A long long time ago"

-David Bowie-

 

 

41

I dream about Travis often, and even in my dreams he is a complete jerk. I feel like I am inflicted with having to love him until I die, and I hope that will not be a long wait.

I will never kill myself, because if I do the cop will win. He’s already won at everything. I cannot let him have this. I hope that one day God will smile down on me, and I will see some justice. But I am not holding my breath for this. I have realized that life does not work that way. A lesson I learned the very hard way.

James will tell me to think positively, but I do not feel like it anymore. If I do not expect anything, I will not be disappointed. I think back on how I stupidly convinced myself that I would run one day, only to realize that I can hardly walk. I always feel pain. The only solution is over the counter pain medication, and even that is useless to me. They do cost money that I do not have anyway. At the present time, there is no solution.

Funeral advertisements are put in my family’s mail slot. The people in the advertisement photos are all seniors. Young people don’t die. The flyers strongly suggest that individuals start thinking about funeral arrangements as soon as possible. Everyone dies. My mother rolls her eyes at this. These are luxuries we cannot afford. I tell her that I do not care what is done with me when I die. I do not tell her that I now see my body as a bionic prison, and that it can be thrown out in the trash for all I care when it finally decides to expire. If I’m buried, in time, it will be bones and metal. If I am cremated, it will be ashes and metal. Is there a third option? I do not care. I have no intention of hanging around my body when it dies. Technically I have no intention to be with it now, but we are kind of stuck. I know that over a period of time, the physical pain will become worse. And the man responsible for all of this?... He will walk free. I know he will do this again. Probably while he is on ‘duty.’ If anyone notices anything, he can just say that he felt threatened. If questions are raised, the ‘special’ investigators unit will work to close the case as quickly as possible. He will do this again. Plus, he is very young. He has a long career of killing ahead of him.

Tax payers' money will provide him with a good income. And tax payers' money will pay to have the ‘special’ investigators cover up any red flags.

And the police officer will walk proudly, claiming that the police are here to ‘serve and protect.’ That is their motto after all. I am extremely curious, and would love for someone to sit down with me and explain who exactly the police were ‘serving’ and ‘protecting’ when one of them threw a punch, then threw me off of a balcony. Who exactly was being ‘served’ or ‘protected’ when my father was attacked from behind by several police officers as he was posing absolutely no threat leaving the apartment? When my friend Loupe was thrown to the ground by a young strong male police officer and acquired injuries, who exactly was the police officer intending to ‘serve’ and ‘protect’ in that case? Loupe’s son who became hysterical when he saw his mother overpowered and defenseless? Where we ‘serving’ and ‘protecting’ him? The motto contradicts the actions, does it not? Or are these just ramblings of a severely brain damaged individual? If you are an intelligent person, you will not have trouble answering this for yourself.

So you want to kill and maim with no consequences? No problem. Just become a police officer, and no questions will be asked. The usual, ‘constant danger’ excuse can and will be used for everything. The word ‘constant’ suggests that something is always present. That it never really goes away. Apparently this is a third world, war torn country I live in where ‘danger’ is ‘constant.’ In my eyes this is complete bullshit, and people eat it up.

A year has now passed since this has happened to me. There is no end in sight. I know I am expected to fight a battle. We all admire people who seem to persevere when faced with great challenges. People who become physically disabled, yet manage to act with great dignity and pride at whatever crap life decides to throw their way. I am not one of these people. I have nothing left.

What becomes strange is that I begin to remember things from years ago. I can now recollect things from decades ago. I remember the apartment I used to live in up to the age of five. One day I describe it to my father. I tell him where the kitchen and the bathroom were. I tell him who lived where. He’s surprised by this, and tells me I am correct. I remember crappy things that have happened to me. One day a young boy followed me home. We were both in grade 3, but he was held back a year so he was significantly bigger than me. It was winter and there was a lot of snow on the ground. He would follow me a few steps behind. From time to time he would grab me and push me. He would then take my head and force my face into the snow. He would wait. I would not be able to breathe. After about half a minute he would let me go. I was crying hysterically and tried to stumble home. He’d give me a few minutes to calm down, then he would grab me again and repeat the attempt to suffocate me. My mother that day was on her way to meet me at school. I was just impatient and hoped to meet her half way. From a distance she saw me in tears. She ran to me, and the boy spotting her took off. She took me to the school right away to talk to someone about the abuse I was having to endure.

"Kids will be kids," was all we heard back from the school authority figures. I should just avoid this young man.

I wonder what he is doing now. Maybe he’s a police officer.

And what ever happened to the girl who used to dance to the samba in her room as she got ready for work? The girl who’d go on dates with boys and laugh at their silly jokes. Theone who had her whole future ahead of her. Whatever happened to that girl? Well... she died sometime back in August of 2010.

What remains in her place is a relatively useless wheelchair-bound cripple, who constantly feels her body fail her in one way or another.

What really bothers me is when people say, "Well at least you’re still alive." I have heard this countless times. It is the thing to say. I do not know how to respond to this. Unless you have had to live through something as horrific as I have, you don’t really know what you’re saying. Nobody asks me what kind of price I had to pay to stay ‘alive.’ Nobody asks me if it was worth it.

Was it worth it?

Not even remotely close.

But one day it will no longer matter that a young male police officer punched my face and maimed me. It will no longer matter that I have become an incredible disappointment to my family, and a burden on society. One day it will no longer matter that I accumulated a significant amount of dept in an attempt to receive a good education. It also will no longer matter that Travis never bothered to show up, or love me back.

You see, one day absolutely none of this will matter, because one day I’ll be dead.

 

 

"I hope the exit is joyful,

and I hope never to return"

-Frida Kahlo-

 

Before My Life Died

Smoke outside

Nice warm September evening

Just a reminder of a summer that passed

And the wanting to keep it

The memories remain

And pain me

Robbie looks into my eyes

And I can’t look away

On the bus ride home

To my left he sits in his car

But does not look over at me

He remains in my heart

While I remain on the bus

When I step through the door

Feeling far away from him

He becomes a memory

And as much as my heart loves him

My logic, or what remains

Tells me I love and illusion

 

 

Once Upon a Time This Was Real

A boy I loved kept the truth from me

Just so I could keep on smiling

His laughter contagious

His hands on my shoulders

And in my hair

And on my lighter

To light my fire

I studied his face, while I inhaled

He studied mine as I exhaled

I, trying not to show too much of what I felt

He, trying to make me show what I felt for him

Any minute now, I might brake

The cigarette in his mouth

Becomes an hourglass

Almost at an end

He smokes it slowly to prolong the time

We know once it’s done

The reason for our outside meeting

Will no longer be legitimate

What was it then that I felt, and why?

Was it the certain way he touched a cigarette to his lips

Or how he kept it there deciding his next move

I wanted to be that cigarette

He puts it out

It’s no longer burning

But I am, as I walk inside