Chapter 5 anna

I used to pretend that I was just going through the family before going to the family I was actually going to.This is not an exaggeration, really - Kate, looks exactly like my father; Jesse, is printed out of my mother's mold; but I, a collection of recessive genes, seem to be picked up from outside.In the hospital cafeteria, eating what looked like rubberized chips and red jelly, I would glance around at other tables, fantasizing that my real parents might be close at hand.If they found me, they would cry with joy, take me to our chateau in Monaco or Romania, have a maid wait on me that smelled like clean sheets, give me a Bernese mountain dog, and my own personal phone line.The point is, the first person I'll call and gleefully tell her about my luck is -- Kate.

Kate needs kidney analysis three times a week, each time for two hours.She has a Matthew Card kidney catheter that looks like the IV catheter she used to have, protruding in the same place on her chest.The kidney analysis catheter was hooked up to a machine that would do things her kidneys couldn't.Kate's blood (which is technically my blood) leaves her body through a needle, is washed, and enters her through a second needle.She said it wouldn't hurt that way, but kidney analysis was boring.Kate always carries a book or CD player.Sometimes we play games.Kate would order me, "You go down the hallway and tell me what the first handsome guy you see looks like", or, "Sneak up to see whose nudes the internet gatekeepers are downloading".I was her eyes and ears when she was stuck in bed.

Today, she is reading a magazine.She touched the breasts of every V-neck model she saw, and I wondered if she knew that she had a catheter in that place and they didn't. "Ah," my mom announced suddenly, "this is interesting." She waved a booklet, You and Your New Kidney, that she had brought from the bulletin board outside Kate's hospital room. "Did you know they don't take out the old kidney? They just put the new one in your body and hang it up." "As creepy as it sounds," Kate said, "Imagine having a forensic doctor cut you open and discover you have three kidneys instead of two."

"I think the kidney transplant is to prevent the forensic doctor from cutting you up in a short time." My mother replied.This virtual kidney she was talking about is still living in my body. I also read that brochure. "Donating a kidney is a pretty safe surgical procedure." But if you ask me, whoever wrote that pamphlet must be comparing this to a heart and lung transplant or brain tumor surgery.I think of safe surgery as a patient who can walk into the operating room by himself, be fully awake during the procedure, and have the procedure done in less than five minutes -- say, removing a wart, or drilling a cavity out of a tooth.Besides, if you donate a kidney, you have to fast the night before the operation and take laxatives to defecate.You must be given anesthesia, which can cause a stroke, heart attack or lung damage.That four hour operation is no walk in the park, you have a one to three thousand chance of dying on the operating table.Luckily you didn’t die, you will be hospitalized for four to seven days, and it will take four to six weeks to fully recover.And that's not including the long-term effects: increased risk of high blood pressure, possible complications during pregnancy, and doctors who advise you to refrain from strenuous activity that could jeopardize your remaining kidney.

Also, the only person ultimately benefiting from removing a wart or drilling a cavity is yourself. There was a knock on the door, and a familiar face came in.Fern Stackhouse was a sheriff and therefore, like my father, a member of the Public Service Society.From time to time he would come to my house to say hello, or leave us Christmas presents.Not long ago, he had rescued Jesse, brought him home, and let him go without bringing him to justice.When you have a dying girl in your family, people will be kinder to you. Fern's face is like a puffed up soufflé, sunken in the most unexpected places.He didn't seem to know whether to enter the nephrology ward or not. "Uh, hi, Sarah," he said.

"Fern!" My mother stood up. "What are you doing in the hospital? Nothing wrong?" "Oh, no. I'm here on business." "Come to deliver the official documents in person?" "Uh-hmm." Sergeant Fern shuffled in, his hands thrust into his coat, in the pose of a portrait of Napoleon. "Sarah, I'm really sorry." With that, he pulled out a document. My face suddenly became like Kate, as if all the blood had left my body.I can't even move. "What...Fern, am I being charged?" My mother's voice was not calm at all.

"I'm not looking, I'm just delivering. Your name is on my list. Well, if, if there's any need, I…" He didn't even finish, hat in hand, bowed his head and left the room quickly. "Mom?" Kate asked. "What's going on?" "I don't know." Mom opened the envelope.I was very close to her and saw the document over her shoulder. "The Estate State of Rhode Island and Providence," the official state name on official documents. Providence County Family Court. Plaintiff: Anna Fitzgerald, aka Andromeda. Petition to remove her right to make medical decisions.

Oh, miserable!I think.My cheeks were burning and my heart was pounding.It feels like the headmaster sent a demerit notice to my house because I sketched Mrs. Tuhai, my math teacher, in the margins of my math textbook and exaggerated her fat buttocks.No, in fact, the situation is a million times worse than my graffiti. In the future she will be able to make her own medical decisions. She cannot be forced to submit to medical practices that affect her own interests and well-being. She doesn't have to undergo any medical action for the benefit of her sister Kate. My mother looked up at me. "Anna," she whispered, "what the hell is this?"

I felt like there was a fist in my stomach, and it was imminent, and I shook my head.what can i say to her "Anna!" She took a step closer to me. Behind her, Kate yelled, "Mom, ouch, Mom...it hurts, call the nurse!" My mother half-turned away.Kate curled up on her side, her hair falling over her face.Her eyes were looking at me from behind the waterfall of hair, I think, but I'm not sure. "Mom," she moaned, "please." At that moment, my mother stood indecisive between the two daughters. She looked at Kate, then at me, and then at Kate. My sister was in pain, so I got away with it.What should I say in this situation?

The last thing I saw before I ran out of the room was my mom ringing the bell for the nurse over and over again, as if it were a detonator for a bomb. I couldn't hide in the cafeteria or the hospital lobby or wherever they thought I'd be.So I climbed the stairs, up to the sixth floor, the delivery room.There was only one telephone in the reception room, which was already in use. "Six pounds and eleven ounces." The man smiled so much that I feared his face might crack. "She's fine." Were my parents so happy when I was born?Did my dad send out a smoke signal?Has he counted my fingers and toes to make sure he makes a quality product?Did my mom kiss the top of my head and refuse to let the nurses carry me to wash?Or, they just hand me over to the nurse, because the real prize is the umbilical cord and placenta.

The new dad finally hung up the phone and laughed into the air. "Congratulations." I said, I really want to tell him, go and hold your little baby tightly, hang a moon beside her cradle, and hang her name high on the stars, so that she can Won't do what I did to my parents. I called Jesse on the pay phone.Twenty minutes later, he pulled up at the entrance in front of the hospital.Now Sergeant Stackhouse had noticed my disappearance, and was waiting at the door when I emerged. "Anna, your mom is worried about you. She radioed your dad. He's digging through the hospital looking for you." I take a deep breath. "Then you'd better go and tell her I'm fine," I said, jumping into the car door Jess opened for me. Jessie pulled off the curb and lit a Merit, and I knew he told Mom he'd given up smoking.He turned up the volume of the music and tapped the rim of the steering wheel with his palm to the beat.It wasn't until he turned off the highway at the Upper Darby exit that he turned off the radio and slowed down. "As a result, did she smoke with anger?" "She called Dad on the radio." In our house, calling my dad out of his job was a felony.Since his job is all about dealing with emergencies, what crisis could we possibly have compared to those in need? "The last time she called Daddy was when Kate was diagnosed with leukemia," Jessie told me. "Great." I folded my arms over my chest. "That makes me feel so good." Jesse smiled and exhaled a smoke ring. "Sister," he said, "welcome to the Underworld." They swirled in like a hurricane.Kate barely got a look at me before Dad told her to go upstairs and into our room.Mom put down her purse and car keys heavily, and walked towards me. "Okay!" she said, her voice almost broken. "What the hell is going on?" I cleared my throat, "I got a lawyer." "Obviously." My mom grabbed the cordless phone and handed it to me. "Tell him you don't need him anymore." It took a lot of courage, but I managed to shake my head and throw the phone onto the sofa cushions. "Anna, don't make me..." "Sarah." Dad's uncommonly forceful voice struck us like an axe, surprising both of us. "I think we should give Ana a chance to explain. We agreed to give her a chance, didn't we?" I looked down, "I don't want to do it again." My mother was thrilled by my words, "You know, Anna, I don't want to either. In fact, neither does Kate. But we don't have a choice." The truth is, I have a choice.That's exactly why I had to step up and do this. My mom looked at me and said, "You go to a lawyer and make him think it's just your problem. It's not, it's our problem. Our whole family..." Dad hugged her shoulders and squeezed her gently.As he leaned over me, I smelled smoke.He came to this fire scene from another fire scene, and I was greatly embarrassed to cause him to be like this. "Anna, honey, we know you think you're doing what you have to..." "I don't think so," Mom interrupted. Dad closed his eyes. "Sarah. Shit, shut up." Then he looked at me again, "Can we talk? Just the three of us, we don't need lawyers to mess with us." His words brought tears to my eyes.I knew this moment would come.I lifted my chin and let the tears flow, "Dad, I can't." "For God's sake, Anna," my mother said, "do you even know what you're doing and what's going on?" My throat shuts like a camera shutter, so any air or excuse has to pass through a tunnel as thin as a needle.I was invisible, I thought, and I found out too late, and I said it out loud. My mother moved so fast that I didn't even see her hand flying.She slapped me so hard that my head shook back.After the finger marks on my face faded, the mark of her stain on me remained in my heart.You know, the stigma is five fingers. While I was in the shower, Kate unlocked the door and walked into the bathroom. "I want to talk to you," she said. I poked my head out of the plastic shower curtain, "Wait until I'm done." I didn't want to talk to her, trying to buy time. "No, now." She sighed while sitting on the toilet seat, "Anna, what you have to do-" "Already done." I said. "If you don't want to do it, you know, you can cancel." I'm glad we're separated by steam because I can't bear the thought of her seeing my face now. "I know." I whisper. Kate was silent for a while.I think her heart must be the same as mine, as if a gerbil was running around.Chasing the possibility of every lap, the result is absolutely nowhere to go. After a while, I stuck my head out again.Kate wiped her eyes and looked up at me, "You know you're my only friend right?" she asked. "Not really." I replied immediately.We both knew I was lying.Kate often called in sick from school, so it was impossible for her to fit in with a group.Due to negligence, most of the friends she had made disappeared during her long-term recuperation at home.It's too difficult for her to make friends. The average child doesn't know how to face a person who is always on the verge of death.It was equally difficult for Kate, who couldn't really get excited about things like school dances and quizzes because there was no guarantee that she would be healthy enough to experience them.Of course, she had a few acquaintances she knew, but most of them looked like they were serving prison sentences when they came to see her.They sat by Kate's bed, counting the minutes, waiting for the moment when they could leave, and thanking God that this hadn't happened to them. Real friends are incapable of feeling sorry for you. "I'm not your friend," I pulled the shower curtain back into place, "I'm your sister." And a lousy sister, I thought.I put my face under the shower head so she wouldn't know I was crying. The shower curtain was pulled open suddenly, leaving me completely exposed. "That's what I want to talk about," Kate said. "It's one thing if you don't want to be my sister anymore. But I don't think I can bear losing you as a friend." She pulled the shower curtain back, and the steaming heat enveloped me.After a while, I heard the door opening and closing, followed by a knife-like cold air. I couldn't bear the thought of losing her either. That night, as soon as Kate fell asleep, I got out of bed and stood next to her.I put my hand up to her nose, trying to see if she was breathing, and a puff of breath hit my hand.I can put my hand down and cover her mouth and nose, and I won't let go when she struggles.What's the difference between what I've done and this terrible thought? The sound of footsteps in the corridor prompted me to crawl back under the covers.I turned sideways, turned my face away from the doorway, lest my parents find my eyelashes fluttering when they came in. "I can't believe it," my mother whispered, "I just can't believe she would do that." My dad was so quiet that I wondered if I had misheard the footsteps and maybe he wasn't here at all. "It's a double Jessie," Mom said. "She's just here to get our attention." I could feel her looking at me like I was a creature she'd never seen before. "Perhaps we should take her out alone.Watching movies, shopping, she will not feel ignored.Show her that she doesn't have to do crazy things to get our attention.What do you think? " My dad took a moment to answer, "Maybe, it's not crazy." Do you know how deep silence squeezes into your eardrums in the dark and can deafen you?Like that, I can barely hear my mom answering. "For god's sake, Brian...which side are you on?" My dad said, "Who said which side?" Even I can answer him.Always have to choose sides.There will always be a winner and a loser.What everyone wants to get depends on what others give. After a few seconds, the door closed.The hallway lights that penetrated the ceiling went out.I blinked and turned back to lie flat - to find my mom still standing by my bed. "I thought you were out." I whisper. She sits at the foot of my bed and I back away a little.But before I backed away too far, she put her hand on my calf, "Anna, what else are you thinking?" My stomach tightens, "I think...I think you're going to hate me." Even in the dark, I can see the light in her eyes. "Oh, Anna," Mom sighed, "how do you not know how much I love you?" She stretched out her arms, and I crawled into her arms, as if I were a child again in my mother's arms.My face was pressed against her shoulder.What I most want and want most is to turn back time a little bit.I became the innocent me before, no matter what my mother said, I would 100% believe it, it was true, it was right, and I didn’t take it seriously to see if there was a crack. My mother hugged me tighter. "Let's go and explain to the judge and tell him we can handle it ourselves," she said, "we can handle anything." Since that's something I've wanted to hear all along, I nod.