A Girl's Guide to Being Jilted | ✓

11| In Which She Bumps Into The Blushing Bride

When I awoke on Saturday morning it was bright and the air was filled with the scent of blooming lilies from Mr. Hannigan's across the street.

The perfume filtered up to the place I lay and unwittingly caused a memory to surface.

One of a time in my life that I'd much rather forget.

I turned to the other side of the bed and buried my face in the pillow. But it didn't stop my mind from spiralling.

I was only nine when the sickness started.

I had just boarded the bus home and was looking forward to hanging out at Matty's because his dad had gotten him a trampoline for his birthday the previous week and I was finally feeling a little relief from the flu I was battling with.

One minute I was aggressively making a case for Rocky Road as the best ice cream in the universe the next I found myself in a hospital bed with tubes snaking around my arms. Turns out I had fainted on the bus ride home from school and was out for a good fourteen hours.

No one had any idea what was wrong with me.

Tests were conducted in the hospital and soon it was found that one of my kidneys was in terrible shape, like almost on the brink of death. They said the telltale signs were all there but my parents just assumed it was the flu. They said I had something called end-stage renal disease.

I was immediately admitted to the hospital and was kept under close observation. So began my four year stint in the hospital and my lifelong battle with a chronic disease.

In the beginning it was horrible because I couldn't go to school or see my friends and I couldn't move from the bed because I was hooked up to different machines that supposedly kept me alive. It was especially horrible because they didn't let anyone other than my dad in to see me.

By the time they approved other people - the second Matty was added to the list he was in my room everyday till I got out - the loneliness had eaten deep into my bones and damaged my psyche.

Aside from the fact that my mother was a vain, petty human being another reason I hated her was the fact that she didn't come to see me in the hospital. Not once.

Every night as I went to sleep I would pray that my mother would be there when I woke up but day after day as I opened my eyes I would either see my dad or Matty. Both on days that were extremely tough.

Never my mother.

Sure she sent cards but nothing would've felt better than seeing her at my bedside, stroking my hand and whispering words of comfort.

When I was thirteen both my kidneys finally gave in and I had to get a transplant. They removed both of them and replaced them.

If I was being completely honest with myself that was the origin of all my problems. The fact that my own organs failed me and I had to use someone else's. I try not to think about whose organs are in my body and where that person was now but every time I go to the bathroom the question pops into my mind.

I was supposed to be grateful to be alive but everyday it felt like I was living on borrowed time, and borrowed organs.

My time in the hospital changed me, made me realize just how fragile and unguaranteed life really was. One minute you could be arguing about which flavor of ice cream is the best, the next you're fighting off the crippling nausea caused by the anti-rejection medication.

The sound of a knock on my door followed by its familiar creak brought me out of my ruminating.

I sat up in my bed, ready to yell at the intruder when I was who it was.