(Actually written on April 28th, 2010 from my hospital bed)
“When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me,
Speaking words of wisdom, ‘Let it be.’
And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me,
Speaking words of wisdom, ‘Let it be.’ ”
It was my birthday and I couldn’t stop crying. I lay in my bed clutching my stomach crying from the pain – physical and mental. This was the third birthday I’d spent away from home. I didn’t even realize this fact until Monday at school and they’d just brought me a cake that said, “My Mother is an Alien” in Korean. It was a chocolate ice cream cake though so definitely wasn’t going to complain about a tiny little bit of writing that I didn’t understand anyway. I was just so thankful they hadn’t gotten one of those awful Tour le Jour cakes with the consistency of a cleaning sponge. And anyway…I’m an alien in this country so by that right, I might have been birthed by an alien. In a way, ones birthday is an unrecognized and indirect celebration of his or her mother’s intensive labor accomplishment. So overall, in a most obscure way, it was almost appropriate – my alien cake.
An alien…as I expressed in “Roots” not long ago, I’ve begun to feel more and more alienated as of late. Monday became the pinnacle point of this feeling - Happy Birthday to me. I’d just spent a weekend feeling incredibly ill and yet I attempted to “run myself better” (race slogan) with a half marathon on Sunday. Instead, I ran myself sicker. While the pain in my entire abdomen continued to toy with me all Monday, I wrote it off as typical digestion problems due to recent diet changes from my trip and maybe some dehydration from both that and my race. So many problems inside…I had no idea what was going on inside of me physically but I knew something wasn’t right. Emotionally, I was having so many crazy thoughts about age, life, love, relationships…
That’s why I was crying. I skyped with my mother for a bit that night but I seriously have the best mother in the world and it just made me feel more homesick and more alone to be so far away from someone so important to me. Then Dave called. He told me I was making him feel old and that I needed to stop it with all the serious talk and just relax – sound advice. He also seconded my mother’s opinion that I go to the doctor about my stomach problems so I finally agreed that it might be a good idea. It was a good talk. Still my mind was troubled with those crazy thoughts but I tried the best method of distraction that I know – music. I grabbed my iPod and fell asleep listening to the Beatles, “Let It Be” on repeat.
OOOOOOOOWWWWWW! The pain continued to worsen Tuesday. The morning wasn’t exactly normal but it wasn't as bad as the rest of the day. I even was smiling in a few of my morning classes. Without even having realized it, I’d put on my “John & Paul & Ringo & George” shirt that morning, perhaps subconsciously inspired by my previous night’s self-sedation method. My Teddy Bear class was all excited about the letters on my shirt. I explained that those are names of the men that sing the “Yellow Submarine” song that I taught them just a few weeks ago and that these men called themselves, “The Beatles.” They loved it. My Broadway-star-in-training lead the class in a rousing rendition of the chorus almost immediately.
At the end of the class, one of the students came up to me and said (and then sang), “Ingrid-Teacher – Let it be…..let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. This is Beatles song.”
I looked at him with wide-eyes and just said, “Yes, Seungchan…..yes it is. How do you know this song?”
Out of all the Beatles’ songs that a 4-year-old Korean boy would know…I thought it would have been “Hey Jude.”
“I love this song,” he said.
A few hours later, tears streamed down my face from the excruciating pain in my stomach as I rode in a taxi on the way to the hospital. Little Seungchan’s singing came to mind. I went through the other lyrics of that song in my head (see above if you are not familiar) and at what seemed to be just the right moment I looked up and saw the hospital name on the building….Saint Mary’s Catholic Hospital.
It wasn’t until much later after a shocking recap of my day learning I’d developed pylrenophitis and would have to be hospitalized that I finally realized the extreme coincidence of all this on top of so many other little similar surreal experiences that happened upon my hospital arrival. I shed many tears that day…some from pain, some from sorrow and some as a daughter calling for her mother. I telephoned her at the end of the night after and was telling her the story of all these coincidences, she said, “Honey…it’s not just coincidence.”
Words of wisdom. I love you Mama.
I was diagnosed with acute pyelonephritis. When I entered the hospital on April 27th, my infection was severe. I had a spiking fever, extreme pain and uncontrollable dehydration. A microabscess was found in my right kidney. After spending 5 days in the hospital to be treated with intravenous antibiotics, I will continue to take oral antibiotics for 3 weeks until the infection is completely gone.
