Caged Bird

“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

It happened yesterday, another flare up out of the blue. I woke up early to head out for my Praxis II exams, which was then followed by my teaching assessment class midterm. I wasn’t worried about how much testing I was going to have to go through, it was more of just wanting the day to be over with. Once the exams were complete I headed home, finally able to rest. I had a nice lunch and took a relaxing shower, then decided to lay my head down for a few before heading out to my education based math class for yet another exam. And that’s when it hit me.

I was laying there and I could feel it, the creeping pain spreading from my neck to the front of my head. It wrapped around my left eye and started to pulse. My back started to tingle and the shooting pain exploded to every inch of my body. I told myself it was just a headache and to not worry. I took some Tylenol and hoped for the best. It wasn’t helping, and my status was deteriorating at an even faster rate. My legs ached and were ice cold. I was having rapid hot/cold flashes. I was in pain from head to toe.

But I pushed through, what choice do you have when it’s an hour away from exam time and at a university that could care less about your medical condition. I was forced to get out of bed, get dressed, and drive myself to my exam regardless of my pain.

By the time I was at school my mind was completely absent. I looked around and it felt like I wasn’t even there. By the time I sat down in my chair for the exam it felt like I was in a dream, those moments when you are dreaming something so real it feels real. Except mine was the exact opposite. I was there, and this wasn’t a dream.

As the exams were passed out I realized I was screwed. It was a packet of 10 pages with questions we hardly even covered. I went through each page and picked out what I automatically knew. When I hit the simple addition problems I stared at the page blankly. The question was to write a real world example for -5 – -5. The answer was 0, but my brain could not think of anything that made sense. I flipped to the next page. Find the error: 10 – -14 = 4. I looked at the problem, stared at it for a good five minutes. The error was obvious and could be applied to the rest of the problem, but my brain just stopped. I looked at the numbers and they seemed so foreign. I went to write my answer and explanation but my hand didn’t want to hold the pencil. Attempt after attempt I failed, I couldn’t hold the pencil and write properly. My handwriting on the test was so poorly written, the spaces between large font letters and sentences made it seem like I was in grade school. But no, just a senior in college having a horrible episode.

When the test was over we had class, 2 more grueling hours of mathematics. By this time I could no longer speak, or sit up straight, or even really look up. I sat in my chair hunched over with my hoodie bunched up around my neck. I was an icicle. At some moments it felt like my breath was even cold. The class passed and I wiggled and waddled out of my seat, having to pause while my blood pressure caught up with the rest of my body. Walking back to my car I was so dizzy and I could hardly breathe. The massive change in temperature blasted me as I went from a lukewarm classroom to a freezing windy outside. As I managed into the car I just wanted to cry.

I was so out of it that even the emotional process of crying was too much for my brain to handle. So I drove home with this heavy feeling in my chest. I felt like a failure, a down right absolute failure. I cursed all of this medical garbage I was dealt and thought of all my other classmates who could care less that I looked like I was dying in my seat. I thought of how wonderful it must be to not be sick all the time, how amazing life must be when your wings haven’t been clipped.

At moments like these I wonder what my life would have been like it I never would have gotten sick. How much different would things have turned out? If I was given the ability to fly from day one would I be someone completely different? If I was given the ability to fly forever would I be like everyone else around me?