(Ch. 18 of my story of how I became deaf…)

Mama said I fought the whole way to the ultrasound room. In my delirium, the hospital walls became a dungeon that confined me. I felt trapped and suffocated. I thought the ventilation bag that the nurse was squeezing for me was blocking my mouth and nose, preventing me from breathing. I wanted it off my face! When I tried to grab the bag away from her, I felt someone at the side of my bed struggle to keep my arms down. I was outnumbered. Eventually, I gave in and put my hands on the nurses hands so I could help pump the bag more rapidly. I needed air!

The pressure on my lungs grew more and more painful. It was very difficult to breathe. It was as if someone had laid a pile of bricks on my chest.

When I reached the room with the ultrasound equipment, I didn’t understand where I was. The room was dimly lit. The only light seemed to come from the glow of the TV monitors nearby. I now felt like I was in a space ship. There were strange machines thick with wires and tubes all around me. When I was moved from the gurney onto the examination table, I could feel the cool vinyl padding beneath the paper-thin sheets. I was scooted down and my feet were inserted into the stirrups. I felt as if I were being specifically seated, harnessed in, and prepared for take-off.

Then someone slowly pulled up my hospital gown exposing me to all who were in the room. I felt the draft of cold air between my legs and I became frightened. Someone with a bright light was inserting a speculum, while someone else was squeezing cold goop on my belly and rubbing it around with some strange, phallic instrument. I suddenly felt violated and began to struggle. I kept trying to pull my gown down to cover my vulnerable middle, squeeze my knees together, and pull my feet out of the stirrups and back up to the table so that I wouldn’t have to spread open my legs.

In reality, the medical technicians were doing everything according to protocol and were as gentle with me as they could be given my struggle. But, I was delirious with extremely high fever and didn’t understand what was happening to me. I remember seeing several men and women in lab coats and scrubs around my examination bed, standing in a cult-like circle. I also recall one woman in the back of the room off to the side, whose face I couldn’t quite see or recognize. I know now that the woman was my mother, who once again had asked to be in the room during that second pelvic exam in hopes that I would not be scared.

Mama must have felt helpless as I flailed about. How agonizing it must have been for her to watch the technicians hold my feet in the stirrups and try to hold me still while the doctor peered deep within me. She moved closer and tried to soothe my fears.

During this exam, Mama saw how red and raw my bottom was becoming from the number of suppositories that had been given to me in such a short time to reduce the fever and stop the violent vomiting. It made her wince. She told me my bottom would remain raw and covered with sores for at least 10 days from those medications.

I didn’t know anything about pelvic exams and ultrasounds then. All I knew was that I felt naked, exposed and very afraid. This was the time during my illness when I was in the belly of the beast. It was during this part of my journey that I fought with the toxic demons that tried to take me.

In my confusion during these medical procedures, I began to hallucinate that I had been taken by a group of boys to a local Boy’s Club where they forced me to lie down on a table in the middle of a large, dim room. I imagined that they stood around me in a circle, chanting and drooling like a pack of wild hyenas while they waited for their leader to come and rape me. Then he would cast my bones into the pack where they would each fight wildly to have their own turn with what was left of me. My wrists were bound, and I was enraged that no one was coming to help me. I felt panic and I tried to call out to the woman in the back of the room. Even though I didn’t know it was Mama, I sensed that she was safe.

Yet all along, the doctors, nurses, Mama and technicians were trying to calm and reassure me. They urged me to relax, because I was putting myself at more risk by fighting. As my energy eventually gave way, my body began to soften, and finally surrendered its struggle. Then, once again, I drifted off.

(Footnote: Don’t give up on the story yet. It has been important for me to share what life was like before I became deaf so that people understand the significant transition that occurred when I became deaf — a transformation I not only understand and accept, but also celebrate! Keep on reading! These middle chapters entitled: Deaf or Death tell the dramatic story of the illness that took my hearing. Keep reading! More coming soon…)

Posted by LaRonda on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 5:30 am.