16,000 miles to run

Three

Serina’s Point of View:

          There was this girl I met in fourth grade, may not have seemed much to anyone but to the girl with no friends, it was everything in the world. This girl became my best friend and as the years went by we became closer. We both had tough lives, so we could relate to one another. It was good to talk to someone who understood. Something was wrong though, as everyone else was growing and going through puberty, my friend wasn’t. She was worried and I did my best to help her, to reassure her she was just a little late. No matter how much I tried, she knew something was wrong, and deep down I did too. 

          In 10th grade she went to the doctor to find out what was happening. She told me they thought she was a late bloomer, but she still fought against that thought. She knew something was wrong. After a while, they did some tests and told her she had no uterus. When she came to school with the news I didn’t know how to react. I was devastated.

          I was running through every option through my head, even the possibility of giving mine to her if she wanted to get pregnant someday. I know it sounds weird, and it wouldn’t be her genes, but I know that is more important to her than it is to me and all I wanted was for her to have the option to have children if she wished. Nothing I could say would help the stress that brought her, and I couldn’t do anything to help besides listen. So I did. 

          A little later more tests were done and the doctors told her they were wrong all along. She had a uterus, but there was still something wrong. I wasn’t sure exactly what they told her at the time, but they came to the conclusion that she had Kallmann’s Syndrome. They did an anosmia test, which means you can’t smell, and she failed it.

          She told me the only thing she can smell is chemicals occasionally, already a horrible smell, I wish if she could only smell one thing it could at least smell good but there’s nothing I could do. 

          Since the day she found out she had K.S. she’s been searching for somebody who understood. Even though I tried to help, I tried to understand, I just couldn’t. I was going through puberty and I didn’t know the feeling of not being able to do that without taking a pill every day.

          She commented on Facebook pages to try and find somebody else, but nobody replied. Every time she found someone else she would show me there story, and I would hope they would reply. If I couldn’t help my friend, I wanted someone else to that could. One day, things changed.

On May 2nd, 2012 she sent me the message someone sent her through Facebook. It read:

          "Hi there um, I found you on one of the K.S pages i have K.S. too and its so good to know someone that has K.S. too... It sucks doesn't it? I hate what it's done but hey. Anosmia sucks doesn't it? Haha.”

          That day, she sent me every message they had back and forth. The moment that made me smile most was when she sent a message that said, “hes a guy that can understand me. he might live on the other side of the world, but...he lives and that's enough.” 

          I sent back a message saying, “I feel like hes thinking the same thing about you.” It turns out, I was right. That conversation went back and forth between her expressing how relieved she was to find someone else who had it and actually had a lot in common with her, and me smiling and replying to all the things she typed. I was so happy that someone finally tried to help her.