The Unforgettable Desire

Imagine an attention deprived 14yo girl getting not only attention but also love and care for being sick. A girl who knew everyone in the school before her illness, a girl who was known in the entire school after. Attention, though enjoyable, can also be scary. From wanting to be seen to living in the fear of being watched, a lot can change for a teenager through her illness. For the most part, having known suffering, having seen suffering, despite her tantrum-throwing self, she learns to be grateful for a life that she earlier despised. It doesn’t help when everyone around her, beginning from her doctors in the ICU to strangers on the road, call her strong. What has she done to survive an illness? Will power, her doctors said. She wondered, really? Maybe. She was just a kid who got her kicks from scoring 100 in Math and wanting to be 'the' topper in class 10 boards. It was the only form of recognition she knew, till she was sick. And the verdict of being strong, of never wan...

I was up on many nights, overthinking, searching the internet for information on ovarian endometrioma. I ended up watching a video of an ovary removal surgery. All I could think was, we look like chickens on the inside! My lower back was hurting for a couple of days now. My go-to response to it was, I can take it. Over the years I made it a point to remind myself that just because I have a high pain tolerance threshold, it doesn’t mean I have to tolerate it that long before making it a matter of concern. I kept telling my mom, it hurts exactly as it does during periods. There’s a cramp in my right leg too. It was weird because I was nowhere near to the call for battle – that’s what I like to call the 48 hours before I begin to bleed, the time when it feels like nothing in my life will work out ever again and I’ll die in living hell. It’s actually a thing! But, there I was, unable to move from bed, unable to find a position that will help me sleep, almost wanting to pass out somehow a...