The Painting on the Pedestal

droop

"Here's to you when the light has grown too dim,
And your faith is just hanging on a limb.
Your heart begins to doubt if you'll ever make it through."

Day 2: droop

Unlike most kids, my dream job never changed. I didn't jump from wanting to be a teacher to a vet to a marine biologist. I've always wanted to be an artist in some capacity. But sometimes wanting something so much makes it more difficult to obtain because it makes people desperate. It makes people feel like anything less is a prison that they need to escape from no matter the cost. My prison has one way out, and it's through the front door. Art is my everything.

Art is what I am dreaming about in the blissful seconds before full consciousness. There's a kind of blanket of serenity resting over me when I am fully awake. The air is peaceful and quiet. I don't open my eyes and simply enjoy my surroundings for a moment. That peace is shattered as soon as my eyelids flutter open. My entire world is blurred. The painting opposite my bed of dolphins frolicking in the sea is a blob of blue and grey. I feel my chest tighten with impending doom. It's a subconscious sense of horror that sends my body into high alert. I start to hyperventilate. When I sit up, my headache hits me like a freight train, forcing me to lie back down. I try again to get out of bed with beads of sweat forming on my temples. I take a couple of shaky steps towards my door when I'm crippled by a wave of nausea. I feel the bile rise up in my throat, so I sprint to my bathroom, stumbling over my own feet along the way.

I barely make it to the toilet in time. Falling to my knees, I nearly bang my forehead into the side of the toilet bowl. The commotion alerts my overprotective mother downstairs, and I hear her steps thundering up the stairs as I try not to vomit in my hair. She takes over, holding my hair in a ponytail until I'm done. I collapse on the bathroom floor and stretch up to flush the toilet. I immediately surrender trying to stand or sit up properly. "I need to go to the doctor," I croak, my voice hoarse. My mother just nods gently and leaves to make a phone call. "Wait," I say weakly, propped up against the wall. "I can barely see either. You're just a mess of colors." My head lolls to the side, limp.

She shouts for my brother and my father. I see their shadows crowd around me in the small bathroom. "We're going to the ER," Mom says tensely, her voice strained.

"What's wrong?" my dad asks my mom quietly as Eliot scoops me up in his arms.

"I know what it is," Mom says with a sniffle.

"You don't know that for sure," my brother hisses in doubt. I see the outline of his face as he stares into my eyes, seeing the secret I am not. The strain is evident in his voice as well. I want to ask about it, but I'm too focused on not projectile vomiting on my brother's shirt.

The car ride there is jostling, and each small bump in the road sends a jolt of pain through my body. The entire check-in process and examination go by in a literal and metaphorical blur. When the nurse asks me to rate my pain from one to ten, I hold up a seven. I'm lying on the examination table curled up in the fetal position with the thin paper crinkling under me when I hear the doctor conversing quietly just outside the room with my parents accompanied by my mother's sobs. I feel my chest tighten again. The small army of footsteps enters the room, so I sit up, the sound of the paper ripping beneath me. I'm not sure where to look. I can only see faint outlines of objects. The blanket I felt when I first awoke has morphed from one of serenity to one of dread, which wraps me up and threatens to choke me. "Sweetie..." Mom begins, putting her hand on my arm. I wish I could see her hand.

"Give it to me straight," I tell everyone in the room. I try to be firm, but my voice wavers. I am terrified of what I might hear.

The male voice who I can only assume to be my doctor begins to explain my situation to me. "You suffered from an acute-angle glaucoma attack which gives you the effects of acute glaucoma in a matter of days instead of years. It explains your nausea, headaches, and of course sudden vision loss and is caused by a build-up of pressure in your eyes."

I take in a shaky breath. I can hear the tears in my voice when I say, "Is there a cure?"

"As of now, there is no cure, but there is treatment to slow vision loss substantially. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to recover the sight you've already lost."

A sob rises from my throat. "Did this have anything to do with me overworking my body?" I hang my head down; I feel my life falling into the bleak abyss.

"No," he says gently. "Glaucoma is genetic."

My head snaps up. I can't tell which outline is my father and which is Eliot. I feel my heart splitting. "Mom? Dad?"

"I'll give you folks a moment," the doctor says before walking out of the room.

"Your, uh, your grandma had glaucoma." I can hear my dad scratch his head. "She committed suicide before you were born." I gasp as reality unlocks the door and shows me the harsh world. I begin to cry. They're ugly sobs – the kind that rack my chest and make me gasp for air and impede my speech. They're the kind that come back just when I think I've gotten over them. And I think about my family, myself, and my future. I think of my brother's strong jawline and gentle smile, my mother's sharp, accentuated cheekbones, and my father's kind eyes. I think of everything I have had the privilege of seeing and everything I will never see again. I think of my how my life is going to change, and the most crushing anxiety consumes my body, my soul. I feel everything. Every emotion ranging the broad spectrum of sadness: regret, guilt, inferiority. 

But then the sadness gives way to anger. It's the deep-rooted anger that plagues every human - the belly of the beast. I'm screaming "Why me?" and pounding the examination table like a small child. And then I'm ripping the paper covering the table because I feel the need to destroy something. I want to destroy something the way this disease is going to destroy my life. When the paper has been ripped to shreds, I begin to pick each one up, one by one. I collect the pieces in my arms the way I will never be able to pick up the shambles of my life, using my sense of touch while my family watches. I can't be sure what they think of me. When I've collected what I can, I fall into a deep silence. I'm quiet when they give me a white cane – the universal signal of blindness. I'm quiet when they give me eye drops to relieve the eye pressure. I'm quiet for the rest of the car ride home and when my family tries to get me to eat and when my parents tell me that they love me. I climb into bed and stay there. I'm a tactful girl turned taciturn.