It is Terrifying to be a Child

I remember the nurses had me pee in a bathtub at the hospital when I was three and a half. I was covered in red-orange Mercurochrome from my belly button to mid thigh. My mother had called my bio-dad to come to the hospital. We rarely saw him. He was 6 foot 4 and towered, lumbering down the hallway beside me.

I remember being way up high in some NYC hospital. I was told to lay down on my belly and look out the window and spot the tiny red cars as the nurse shot me in the ass with a gigantic needle.

I remember two mean old lady nurses giving me a sponge bath when I was in the hospital to have my tonsils out I was 5. I remember being given ether through a small metal thing like a colander over my mouth on the operating table and my mother waving and smiling her red-lipsticked smile and walking backwards.

When I was six I was hospitalized for a week for appendectomy. My mother was incredibly happy. She decorated my bed with crepe-paper flowers she made and sprayed them with perfume. She brought me a picture-book about a girl who is in the hospital for an appendectomy. She brought in two girls in wheelchairs to become my new best friends.