How to mend a broken heart: Part 2.

1. Want something real.
2. Be uncomfortable.
3. Have uncontrollable desire.

You want real food. You want ham and peas and mashed potatoes and chow fun with beef. But Dad said you have to eat the food on the tray. He said you have to drink the Hawaiian punch in the pee cup. You know it’s a pee cup, because you remember peeing in one of those cups. And you know there is something wrong with that Hawaiian punch because you saw Mom mashing medicine in it.
Don’t say anything.
Just take it.

Wake up feeling very uncomfortable. You are breathing inside a balloon, it seems like, that’s someone is pushing onto. You see your parents through a glass window. They are blurry so you don’t know how they are feeling.
Feel tired.
Close your eyes.
Open them.
The doctors tuned into Muppets. They are boggling up and down around you.
Look up and see the fluorescent light, then see two black specs in the light.
“That’s your Dad. And that’s your Mom. They’re flying jets with you,” a Muppet said. “We are actually in jets too.”
Look out the window from the operation room. And see the building opening its wings and begin flying.

In bed. There are only two things you want at this moment: to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on television and apple juice.
You can’t move.
You shout. “Please, I’m so bored and I’m so thirsty.”
They give you a videotape of your heroes.
You have already watched this episode several times before but you cannot complain. “She’s not suppose to eat or drink anything for at least 12 hours,” the nurses say.
You look at your Dad.
“But Dad, my mouth is so dry.”
It is super dry.
You feel like you have no saliva glands at all.
Crazy wa la bang bang! You like saying that combination of words.
You take your father’s hands. Put his pointer finger in your mouth. “See, Dad isn’t dry?” He smiles.
“I need apple juice so bad.”
After 2 episodes of Ninja Turtles, they give you apple juice in a test tube.
You drink it in one gulp.
Then you throw up in a chamber pot.


(Disclaimer: This is an actual photo taken after my surgery. I look bloated because of the antibiotics. I'm really not a fat kid. Really.)