Tuesday morning began with the same irritating alarm clock bing as the day before, piercing Carissa’s eardrums. Moaning, she rolled over to slam it off.
“Here we go,” she mumbled, transferring from her bed to her chair.
She made her way to the kitchen, where she gulped a bottle of water for her kidneys and crammed a piece of toast in her mouth, before flying out the door for school. Secretly, she craved another chocolate chip muffin.
At school, she parked in the same spot as yesterday. Perhaps she was the only one using the handicapped spots. Could she be that lucky? One could hope. She lifted her chair out of the driver’s side door, grabbed her bag, and set off to find her classroom. She had always been a skilled writer. English, no matter what level, should be a breeze.
Carissa found her classroom at the end of a long hallway in the Humanities building. Another girl, chubby, with bright red hair and freckles, was already seated at one of about fifty chair-desks, wearing jeans and a white-and-red striped tee shirt.
“Hi,” Carissa said.
“Hey,” the girl replied.
“I’m Carissa.” She extended her hand.
“Amy,” her new classmate answered. “What’s going on with your legs?”
Forward, wasn’t she? Carissa was never quite sure how to respond in these situations. Car wreck? Spina bifida? Like she’d even know what that was… None of your business? It felt kind of intrusive. I mean, here was this stranger, and the first thing she wanted to know was the most personal thing about her. Sometimes Carissa wished her disability didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe then people would get to know her, and not her chair.
“Uh… I was born with a hole in my spine,” Carissa said. “My spinal cord was coming out of my back. It paralyzed me.” There, that usually covered it. People didn’t usually ask questions after the brutal, honest truth. She had been born with her spinal cord literally protruding in a bloody mass outside her back. Her mother had described it as a big, bloody bubble. Carissa had never seen it. There were no pictures. Her parents had been too traumatized in the moment to take any.
After everything they were told that day, Carissa didn’t blame them. It was a miracle she had survived at all, according to her doctors. The doctor who delivered her explained that Carissa was paralyzed from the waist down, that she would never walk. She also would have bowel and bladder issues to go along with the paralysis and would need lifelong care for those. All this was if they could get a tube into her brain in time to relieve the crushing fluid—hydrocephalus was the medical term—that was sure to make her a “vegetable” if she lived through it at all. Yeah. She was blessed. She was alive. She was paralyzed, but she was alive. And life was good.
“Wow,” Amy responded, not probing any further.
Carissa spotted a round table near the back of the room and, steering around the desks, she went over to it, moving a chair so she could pull her wheelchair up to the table.
English went as expected. She didn’t expect any problems. This would be her easy class, her favorite class.
Just as she was getting into her car, planning a relaxed rest of the morning at home, she remembered the doctor appointment. Instead of going home, she made her way into the medical center, the teaching hospital where she had been a patient her whole life. She’d grab a bottle of water from the machine inside the hospital to drink before the test. They always wanted to be able to measure how much urine her bladder could hold before it exploded. And that was a guarantee. Her bladder always betrayed her on these days. It was a fight she couldn’t win.
She arrived at the hospital in time to see an ambulance pull into the Emergency entrance, sirens blaring, and she whispered a quiet prayer for the person inside. She made her way up the handicapped ramp to the door and pushed the automatic opener. She took the familiar elevator to the third floor. Just outside the elevator, she arrived at the desk, gave the secretary her name and her doctor’s name, and rolled to the other side of the waiting room.
“Crap.” She had forgotten her water.
She went back to the desk. “Ma’am, do you think I have time to make a run to the vending machine before my test?” she asked.
“Sure. I’ll tell them where you are if they come for you. Take your time.”
“Great. Thanks.”
She raced down the hallway to the vending machine and pushed the button for water. She really wanted a Coke, but she didn’t want to explain that choice to her urologist. Water it would be. She chugged some as soon as the bottle came and secured it on her lap for the trip back to the waiting room.
Arriving back at the front desk, she saw a familiar nurse she’d known her whole life.
“Hey, DeeJae!”
A tall, slender woman wearing purple scrubs turned and flashed a big smile. Short blonde hair framed her sensitive face and hazel eyes sparkled behind rectangular glasses. “Hey, kid. You ready? Come on back.” DeeJae motioned her toward the door.
“Ready as ever.” Carissa followed DeeJae down the familiar hallway to urology. She’d made this trip more times than she could remember. She wondered why they didn’t just name the hallway after her.
“We’re here, kid. You know the drill. Cath into this cup, then get on the table. Everything off below the waist. Let me know if you need help. And I ran the student off. No guinea-piggin’ for you today. Not my girl,” DeeJae said.
“You’re the best. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
Carissa did as she was instructed. It was routine by now and, when she was on the table in the most vulnerable position possible, she called out to the nurse.
DeeJae made her way into the room and gloved up for the procedure. “Do you have the cup with your urine output?” she asked.
“Yeah, I put it on the table.”
“Hmmm… not much today,” DeeJae said. “Did you drink your water?”
“I forgot until last minute. I chugged, though, as soon as I remembered.”
“Why am I not surprised that my favorite Coke-chugging patient didn’t get her water today? Carissa, you know what I’m going to say. I’m not even going to bother. You already know.” DeeJae gave her a warm smile to go with her pretend frown.
“I know. I know. I just don’t like the taste. I’ll do better; I promise.” Carissa replied, half-feeling terrible for treating her body this way, and half-knowing next year wouldn’t be any different. She knew water was best for her kidneys, but she just couldn’t understand how people drank that stuff all the time. No flavor, boring, yucky water. Maybe she would try. Maybe.
“All right, I’m going to start inserting the tubes,” DeeJae explained. “Let me know if anything hurts or feels different from the other times.”
Carissa laid there as all the tubes and wires were pushed into all their various temporary homes on her body. It was uncomfortable, but paralysis did help. She could feel some of it, but was spared the pain she knew would have come had she had full sensation. She thanked God for that as another tube went in.
“Okay, I’m going to start the saline now. Let me know when you feel the urge to go.”
After several seconds, Carissa thought she felt an urge of some sort, so she said so.
“Good,” DeeJae said. “Now, let me know when you can definitely go to the bathroom.”
After several more seconds, Carissa really had to go. She let DeeJae know.
“Great. Now tell me when you absolutely, positively cannot wait another second. You’re gonna pee, RIGHT NOW.”
It didn’t take long. “I gotta go!” Carissa exclaimed, as she felt the familiar, “too late” warmth. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I was too late. I had an accident.”
“It’s okay, Carissa. That’s what we want to know. How much pressure can your bladder hold before it releases the tension? It’s a little bit before you start yelling at me.”
Carissa laughed. She loved DeeJae; she always knew how to make the best of a mortifying situation.
After getting cleaned up and dressed again, Carissa went back to the waiting room for her second appointment. The doctor would look at her tests, determine if there was anything of concern, and give her the results. Usually, after that, she was cleared for a year. This was the easy part. At least the probes were gone.