Clutching the sheets of the hospital bed, I knew everything would go south, the once optimistic girl that found joy in the simplest times, the simplest days, and the wonderous crave for adventure, simply vanished, as I stayed in the white room, looking out into the city, watching as the days go by, forgetting how to speak, how to write, and how to hold onto anything. Everything I was supposed to know how to do, simply was forgotten, no longer able to remember a single thing that my motor skills were supposed to know. The day usually started out being bright, painless, and filled with smiles, and doctors coming in and out of my room, checking in on my progress as they tried to cure me, and make sure I was recovering. But I ate so little before I was admitted to the hospital, so little that my figure looked nothing like bones. my cheeks sucked in, my eyes popping, I looked sick, as I walked around and everyone stared, but I didn’t know, I could never had guessed what was happening as my condition was getting worse.
“You are not beautiful” Margarette said, her thin lips, and dark curls waving as she turned to face me, she had anger in her eyes, one where you would shrink, and slowly cave to the wall, hoping, praying that you’d be sucked in, and be hidden away from the world of judgement. Continuing her statement, she smiled, her nails digging deeper into my skin as she spat vile words that could make a sailor blush, “Who do you think you are to score higher than me on that test?” Margarette asked, she was angry, and annoyed. Her father was a teacher to fifth graders, at the time, and she smiled and took advantage of her fathers position as a fifth-grade teacher. She knew power, she knew the people that would kneel, and beg for her to leave them alone. Pushing me to the wall, she rolled her eyes, and left me to go into the classroom just for next period. It was English, and I tried my best to hide the scratch marks on my arms before anyone could find out, mostly my parents. I barely ate the lunch my parents would pack for me, I wasn’t hungry, my appetite was gone, as I watched held onto the scratch marks on my arms. They were deep, and painful, as if I were scratched by a cat. I sat on my chair doing the homework for the day instead, I barely understood
the things happening, but I knew I excelled in my studies when I was alone. Doing my homework, I highlighted, wrote, and tried to understand my homework. The bell finally rang, and I was still alone in the classroom, fiddling with my pencils, and trying to answer and mostly understand my homework. In a class of forty students, I was so used to being a background character all because I was never talked to, or even noticed by anyone. Coming home from school, I fall asleep in the school bus trying to block out the sounds of noisy high schoolers and middle schoolers. Finally blocking out the noise, I sit at home and try to rest alone with my sister. Finally, home I can rarely get a bite of my food, as I watch my family eat properly, and eat happily with their food. Taking in a bite after another, feeling full, and sick, right after the third bite, I close up my spoon and fork and place it in the sink. I rarely ate properly, I hated eating, I hated the feeling of wanting to throw up, and let go of the food I ate.
Days pass, and my appetite has yet to change, the bullying never stopped, and my figure was now stick thin. “Why aren’t you eating?” my mother asked, her face filled with worry, as I sat on the dining table watching my food, hoping it would disappear without me touching it. “I don’t feel hungry.” I said, as I started drinking my water. And those days turned to months, as my appetite did not change. My condition was getting worse, my words were rambled, and twisted. My train of thought was slow, and I couldn’t think straight anymore. My brain was swelling up and started rubbing on my skull. No one knew what was happening to me yet, no one even knew what was wrong. But as the days progressed, and I was going to school, I kept staring into nothingness, I can hardly hear anything as I started hanging and staring into space. I forget what was happening, I forget the lessons, and I started forgetting what to do right after school. I was always tired, and always begging to stay home. My condition finally became worse, I felt sick, I wanted to throw up right after eating food, my stomach hurt, and I rarely get a good nights sleep. Finally, went I would end up going down the stairs of the house, I would end up leaning on the wall as support to not fall down the stairs, not being able to contain, or control my emotions, having sudden emotional outbursts and always wanting attention from my mother, my father, and those that love me. I believe my
parents realized I had to be admitted to the hospital the moment, my body started being unproportioned to my body. Everything right after them bringing me to the hospital became a blur, and I hardly remember everything that happened to me. As if I was in a coma the whole time, I was sick. The doctors taking care of me smiled, but I knew it was filled with worry. My mother stayed with me the entire time, sleeping on the couch, praying, and hoping I would get better. Deep in the back of my mind, I hoped, and wished I would stop fighting for my life, hoping I would just be taken by death, and just enter the light. I remember watching television in my room, the sound of Disney channel around my room, as I watched the man switch bodies with a dog and talking about his horrible life as a lawyer. Fifteen minutes into the movie, I started hanging, everything went black, and I forgot the things that have happened in the movie. My mothers concern grew, as I did not blink for an hour on my bed and did not hear a single thing, she told me.
The doctors brought me to an operating room, to inject me, on my spine. My mind going insane as I saw all the people in the room with their masks and gowns, unable to distinguish anyone from the room, I started kicking and screaming. Finally, I was able to calm down, settle on the bed, and put to sleep by the doctors to inject something in my spine. Everything after that was darkness. It wasn’t long until I was visited by the nuns from my school, holding a bag filled with “get well soon” letters from my classmates. Some are from people I rarely know, and people I don’t know at all. To some degree, I tried to read the letters, but I can’t. I gave up, and the moment someone read them to me, I started falling asleep, or not listening at all. Through all the brain scans, blood tests, and heart monitors. From all the things you can hear and take, you mostly recall the strong scent of bleach and alcohol filling the air as you lie on the bed, and stay there, forgetting what you are, who you are, what to do, how to speak, and what time of the day it is. With ADEM (Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis) came the problems, problems that render you speechless, tired, and useless. You cannot write; your signature and penmanship go down, as you try to remember how to do, you’re ABC’s, count with your fingers, hold a pencil, count from one through ten, or
even speak. Your words, and letters start twisting, changing, you cannot write as your muscles are not used to holding a pen and applying pressure onto any surface or paper seemed like a taxing thing to do. But you move on, you are brought out of the hospital, prescribed some medicine, to keep you from going back and to help you recover, and you start going through different therapy treatments. Finally, brought out of the hospital, I was welcomed by my family from my fathers and mothers side, simply put, my entire family came to see me. How I was, what had happened to me and what was wrong. I wasn’t capable of walking, I had a difficult time, I came into the house in a wheelchair, and having to move around the house, my sister had to carry me everywhere until I was ready to finally stand on my own two legs.
I came back to school, the mean girls that bullied me, pulled on my hair, were nice and trying to get on my good side as I came back weeks after from the hospital, of course my drained and tired brain could barely handle the schoolwork, nor the time I had to stay in school and handle hours of listening to the teacher discuss the lesson. I remember my teacher calling me as I watched the outside world, spacing out, and going having a difficult time focusing on my studies because of it. My mother she thought the time was difficult for me, and it was. She transferred me to the school right in front of Ateneo De Manila, called “Kostka” the layout of the whole school looked as if it was a prison camp, rather than a school, where the students were inside grilled classrooms, and the office was divided by a gate to keep students out. It was quite a dark atmosphere, as there was minimal light for me to see around majority of the time. But then, I had to live with people who could, and I had to adjust to the dark hallways, and classrooms every time I walked around the school. Truly, Assumption had it’s perks of making young girls act so much like ladies, making them grow up to be graceful, and careful about the words that they say around people. But as I walked around Kostka, I have no idea what the appeal was, the boys were rude, and disturbingly loud, the girls were mean, and completely lacked poise and tact as they simply talked about little things such as people and why people shouldn’t be friends with them as they talked about the negative perks of that certain person. I have made friends, though fake friends, they were enough to keep me company. I have
dealt with my own problems during my time in Kostka, I had to be part of the group or I’d be ostracized and left out by the people there. It was a matter of finding my clique and making connections. Racism was big in that school, mostly in third grade, as we had a Korean classmate, I feel bad for talking about her behind her back, and right in front of her, as she was nothing but a sweet girl, that did her responsibilities as quietly as she could. She was a quiet girl, and I was influenced by people to talk terribly about her.
Kostka gave me issues, and have given me traumatic experiences with teachers, as they would fail you for no reason entirely, unless we their students gave them gifts would they then start giving us lines of eights and nines. I had an entirely different perspective in my time in Kostka, it was all wrong where you buy your way to get to the top of the class. As I was in Kostka, I noticed how majority of the teachers in the classroom were biased, and filled with aggression as my teachers taught, and spoke about their problems. I remember talking to one of my science teachers, asking me about transferring to a different school in third grade. her reply however was “Mabuti, nandito tito mo eh.” (“Good, your uncle is here”) as she placed her hand on my shoulders. The reference being her anger and aggression towards my uncle that I had no idea, or even a single thing to do with their little dispute. Because of that teacher, I wanted to leave, I left the school a year after, went off to Berea, and decided to forget all about Kostka, as I transferred. Kostka was not a fun environment, nor was it a good influence for young children to grow up in. Though the school did their duties of teaching the students, the teachers often put-up fake smiles, and looked at their students up and down as if they were below them or had more money than anyone. The students talk about each other, spread rumors about people we don’t even know fully, and try to change people just so they could be accepted by everyone else, in a sense, it was to shape everyone, and form them into the same mold. It was a scary place, mostly for students, and children, as they were growing up in an environment that did not care for the people, but for the money being brought in by the students to pass. The school was always dark, oddly scary for me to even be there as events happen once in a while, where the canteen area would be filled with stalls, and students chattering in the middle of the hall. I remember how you could buy your
way out of being bullied by the people in class, as you treat everyone you know and want you to plead on your knees so they would stop getting mad and screaming at you over anything you did.
Moving to Berea, was probably the best thing my mother and I have decided to do. As I moved to the school, my ideas, and opinions changed. I started being open minded to different things and wanted to improve on things on my own. I started wanting to be different, and I wanted to be a new person because is there any way people will like the old me? I wanted to be one of the people that gets placed on the honor roll, be a good student as I progress to the next level. Of course, we can’t have it all. I entered high school hoping I would find it easier on myself and everyone I know. But it wasn’t enough to hope, as grade seven was a difficult time to adjust to the new high school system. Math was much more difficult, and Science was something that became a weak point for me. Though no one was bullying me, I started being insecure, and scared of asking for help from my classmates or I might be ridiculed for not knowing. Of course, as you grow more and more in the school, you start realizing that you are not alone. You want to know more, because you are not the only one who wants or needs help. I enjoyed the consultations given by the teachers, where when you seek for help, they will gladly give it to you and help you. Berea is a wonderful place to grow and learn. Though it challenges you, gives you difficulty, and makes you want to cry as you fail repeatedly on your subjects, you end up growing with all the failures given to you and you start accepting failure, and learning from them. Math was never my strong suite. I’ve always had a difficult time at it, but of course, out of the things you can learn from a school, is how to be unique, and different from the people around you. You all may think alike, talk alike, and even do things the same way, but you start realizing things on your own as you progress, and grow up. As I am graduating this year, I am quite happy that I have made it, I have gone through school with so many hardships, and put myself in difficult places and positions as I grew. But I am quite sad to let go of the nest where my character approved and grew. I will never forget Berea as a place of knowledge, and Intellectual Growth. Though it leaves scars on the Emotional aspect of an individual, I do not regret that I went through the hardships of math and science,
because I wouldn’t want things given to me on a silver platter, and gold coatings. I think, the hardships given to me were a blessing I was too young to see and notice on my own.
