Unwell

When I got my diagnosis...

 

            He awoke on a grey Monday morning. With winter just around the corner, he dreaded the prospect of having to visit his family in his condition. What would they say? The stress of it was too much to bear, so he put it in the back of his mind. It could wait…

            First thing was first; breakfast could not wait. His stomach rumbled, so he rushed down the stairs to make a bowl of cereal and orange juice, his regular. However, as he was pouring the milk, he thought once again of what the day had in store for him, he dropped the milk and it made a mess on the floor. As the saying went, there was no use in him crying over it, so he cheerfully cleaned the small puddle up. He would not let anything get him down that morning.

            He dreaded Mondays at work; he always did. There was something about them that stressed him out more than usual. At a place where his talents were not only disregarded, but made him feel alien, he marched to the beat of a different drummer. Unfortunately, management saw the ugly duckling he was and tried daily to stress him out to the point where…

            While thinking of the stresses of work, he dropped his emptied orange juice cup onto the floor. He was getting very clumsy lately.

            Irregardless, this day, he would not go into work at all. He requested off because of a very important doctors appointment. He wanted to walk in there with a cheerful outlook, and walk right back out with the hope that everything is going to be alright.

            With the morning to spare, he tackled some of his coursework. His classes were all online, which made student relations that much easier. Nobody would see him as he was seen at work. Nobody would see him as he feared his family would.

            Nobody would see him as the strangers he faced everyday did. Sometime before he left for his appointment, he went to get a Christmas gift for his partner. Even going to the store, he couldn’t escape the strange glances from the elderly. Parents ushered their children away from him because they didn’t understand.

            As he was checking out, the cashier looked at him and asked “Did you say something?”

            Confused, he responded, “No.” He hadn’t said anything at all…

            On the way to the doctor’s office, his brother called to chat. Unfortunately, the call hadn’t lasted long because his brother believed the connection to be bad. “It isn’t bad” he responded, but he couldn’t tell his brother why without a definitive answer.

            Once at the doctor’s office, he sat in the waiting room, enduring the stares of those who had been listening to the radio before. He buried his nose into his book, ignoring the ignorance of the stares. It just couldn’t be helped.

            Finally, he was called back to see the doctor. After being poked, prodded, reflex-tested, and coordination-tested, the doctor sat him on one side of the desk and took a seat on the other.

            “Thom, based on your previous and current medical conditions, you have developed a verbal tic that puts you in a category you did not want to hear. You have Tourettes.”

            Instantly, passions that he had been waiting for in his life were taken away from him. He’d never act again, especially on Broadway. He’d never fence again, even if he were to try out for the Olympics. Singing is now limited, as his throat becomes increasingly sore as the day wears on. All this and more because of the indistinguishable verbal garbage he couldn’t help uttering, the shoulder he couldn’t stop from shaking, and the neck he couldn’t stop from twitching.

            The next few days, he told various members of his family in Pennsylvania and Florida about the condition. Thankfully, everyone was supportive and cheered up his grim outlook just in time. On Thanksgiving (of all of the perfect days), he briefly talked with a young lady about her uncontrollable muscular tic. At that moment, he knew that he was given this condition to help her through hers. And because she would come to rely on him as a role model, she, unknowingly, became someone to help him through his.

Author's Note

Rough draft, which is all this will ever be. I needed to get it out for everyone to know...

Reviews

[J. Marc]

Great! It was quite a thriller though, I did not expect the Tourettes to be the illness but am so glad it is that and not something else!!!! And indeed, the end of the story takes the reader completely aback but in surprise and appreciation. Very nice for a draft!