What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger By Julia I stepped out of my aunt’s house into the warm summer air. The sky was beginning to darken, and the bugs were eating away at my skin. I heard the announcer of a baseball game near by, and saw a man and a woman passing through the woods. “Mom!” I cried, “I’m going to try and do another cartwheel!” “Alright let’s see!” My mom replied, a waft of cool air blowing her hair, “This will be the last one, and then we’ll head home.” I raised my hands over my head and placed them on the ground; I swung my legs over and – Crack. Crack. “OWWW!!” I howled, clutching my knee to my chest. This is what it feels like when you’re dying. My mom came rushing over my aunt’s garden, asking what the matter was. “I…it…I heard it…” “What did you hear?” My mom asked with a neutral tone. “Crack…” I replied unable to say more. The tears were like waterfalls. “Let’s get ice and try to straighten your leg out,” my mom said, probably as worried as I was. “Owww!!” I cried again. This was an uncomfortable and unpleasant moment. I clenched my teeth together and breathed heavily. My mom stayed by my side in my aunt’s backyard as my cousin ran in to find some ice. When I put the ice on, I sobbed not caring when some group of strangers walked by. I can’t even describe the pain I was in. The only way I can is it was like someone digging a knife through your body. This was the most pain I had ever been in. While I was lying on the bed trying to forget the horrible cartwheel, I drifted off into the next morning. “Let’s go Jule,” my mom called. “Mmf,” I replied. “Come on we have to go to the clinic!” “Okay okay,” I said slowly sitting up. Ew it’s huge. My knee looked like a watermelon! I then realized that my leg was not working. Oh for the love of god. How am I supposed to get out? I put my right foot down and carried my left slowly thinking it wouldn’t hurt. But what do you know? If you just touched it, I would start clenching my teeth and blinking my eyes rapidly. *** “Ok sweetie, here are some crutches and the brace,” the woman told my red blotchy face. “Thanks,” I replied looking away, trying to hold back the tears. They had told me I definitely did something serious to my knee and I should visit a doctor in a week if it was still hurting. I felt as if I was smacked in the face. This was horrible. I wouldn’t be able to walk or do anything for so long. *** The doctor visit wasn’t stellar. I went two weeks after I got the brace and crutches since I was still in pain. “Wow, that’s…very big,” she said touching my knee, I winced at the pain, “Well…you probably will get surgery—actually never mind it’s a 50 50 chance you might need surgery so take care of that leg!” “Um…ok?” My mom questioning what she was saying, “So shouldn’t worry about it just yet?” “Oh! No no I think she should see a surgeon soon,” the woman stuttered. As we walked out of the small practice I complained, “Mom it seems like she thought I needed surgery.” “I don’t know, but she didn’t seem like she knew a lot,” she replied. ***
“Hello, my name is Benton Heyworth,” one of the many surgeons said. “It seems to me that you will be needing surgery.” It looked like my knee was going to burst open, even though the injury happened three weeks earlier. “You’re kidding,” I said hoping he was just playing. “Nope, you have sheered off part of your knee cartilage,” he replied with raised eyebrows. I felt like taking that fake pelvis bone on the table and slamming over my head. Why would I want to live with having surgery on an essential part of my body? It was terrible! *** About a week later, I was at Children’s Hospital in the “too clean pre-op room”. It smelled like someone was using bleach in there, and the floors were so carefully washed that I could almost see my reflection. The man who claimed to be the anesthesiologist told me he gave me laughing medication to help me sleep. I didn’t laugh. Beep. Beep. Beep. Be be be be beeeeeep. “Can you shut that off?” I asked as my eyes fluttered open. “No sweetie,” a large woman typing on a computer replied. “It’s f…fre…freezing in here,” I shivered. “That’s a side effect of the medication, you’ll be okay later.” “Can I have a blanket?” “You already have four. Wow that medication really did affect you…” The woman drone on about something that happened and how I was shivering since I got out of surgery. The room I was put in for the night was very cozy. There was even a bed for my mom to sleep in. After I was fixed up, I thought about what real dying patients suffer. I wasn’t one I was just a girl who had surgery because of a fall. I decided that when I was allowed to do things to get back to health, that I’d try to be conscious of myself and not do silly things to myself. After all, what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger.