Personal Narrative: The Influenza

Apparently, she was brought to the hospital from a nursing home because of uncontrolled pain. The doctor who admitted her was notorious for berating a nurse at a moment’s notice and was the head physician at the hospital and ruled the roost (so to speak) and was impossible to please – reportedly. The off-going nurse was giving me report, and it went something like this: “She is in there crying and squirming in pain. She is complaining of stomach upset and nausea but not throwing up. There is nothing I can do because her morphine is only ordered every two hours and she just had it about 15 minutes ago and it’s not helping.

The perils of psychiatric medicine greatly affected Esther’s life. In chapter 10, when Teresa, their family doctor, refused to prescribe stronger sleeping pills for Esther anymore, because Esther was unable to sleep and read anymore. She (Teresa) referred Esther to a psychiatrist, Doctor Gordon. In Chapter 11, Esther later on realized that she was not sleeping for seven nights. She also realized that she has not had taken a bath, washed her hair and changed her clothes for three weeks either.

I never really fully cried, but I did loose a lot of sleep after my grandparents death. My mother was worried for a while because I would not sleep and my health was beginning to diminish. She ended up taking me to the doctor and they declared that I was suffering from insomnia. There was no explanation, but I knew that I was still grieving my grandparents, it was the only way that I could; since no one would know that I would cry in the middle of the night. About a couple of months later, everything was beginning to go back to normal, I still do not have the courage to speak about my grandmother or grandfather without shedding a tear.

In 25th of October, 1995 middle of the night Janette Morinio has started feeling very bad, she was screaming really hard out of the pain she was feeling. Her neighbors have heard her scream then called the emergency ambulance to come get her. She was immediately sent to the Emergency Center, at that time she was pregnant for about 8months. Certain checks were done to Janette, she had to go through an operation because the fetus inside her had to be born. At that night, Janette was put to sleep using drugs.

“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anna Fadiman tells the story of Lia Lee, a Hmong child with epilepsy, whose life could have been different if only her family was caught up in western medicine. This book reveals the tragic struggles between a doctor and patient because of lack of communication. When Lia was around three months old, her older sister Yer accidentally slammed a door and Lia had suddenly fallen into the floor. This is the first recorded time that Lia was experiencing an epileptic shock. Her parents, Foua and Nao Kao, believed that the noise of the door had caused her soul to travel in the spirit land and is now able to communicate with them.

Terri Schiavo was a 26 year old woman who collapsed at her home in February of 1990. Schiavo had no flow of oxygen to her brain for several minutes, causing her to fall into a persistent vegetative state. Although she was severely brain damaged, she still maintained a heartbeat with blood flow, and was able to see and move her limbs with impaired vision (Lynne, 2005).However, it was still necessary that Schiavo have a feeding tube to sustain her life. Terri 's husband believed that she would have wanted to be taken off life support and die a natural death, claiming he heard her say “If I ever have to be a burden to anybody, I don’t want to live like that.” (Lynne, 2005). Schiavo 's parents disagreed, arguing that Terri always executed a

Becky was a 23-year-old girl who got diagnosed with a melanoma after she saw an irregular mole on the back of her leg. She said she started tanning at 17 with her mom and got a tan 2-3 times a week once she started college. She is now 27 and does not know whether or not her cancer will come back. Becky’s story is only one of many, so many people use tanning beds not knowing what they do to them or not caring. Parents encourage their kids to tan even if they know the consequences and no one is saying anything.

PROLOGUE Notes from Donna’s parents and sister . . . When Donna was born, her skin was so raw from eczema that she could not lay on the sheets in the hospital without her skin coming off, so we went home the day after she was born. From that very moment, we were praying for her to be healed.

She recalls that she was forced to stay inside for almost 2 months because the pain was unbearable. Everytime she stood up the wound would reopen and she would bleed out. She wasn 't able to shower for three weeks. She was exremely lucky that she didn 't share the same fate as the other girls from her tribe. (Reveal Topic) Female Gential Mutilation.

The next day they have to go to dance rehearsal and Jules has very bad pain in her hip and back. As a result, Jules has to stop dancing for a while and she goes to a specialist to help her after seeing many other doctors who tells Juliana and her family that she has stage 4 cancer. Sam, Juliana, and her family were devastated, crying about the bad news. Jules begins to feel that her mother and Sam are the only ones who see her as the same person. Everyone else treats Jules differently.

Take for example J.D, an 18 month old infant who always cries whenever her mother leaves. She doesn’t sleep at all during nap time and cries whenever I go to other babies cots. That went on for a about two weeks. Even at that time, I knew about separation and stranger anxieties because of one seminar I attended that summer. I said to myself it’s just natural and developmentally appropriate for them to feel that way.

Gaia wasn’t brought up like most outer-enclave children. She is the daughter of an very prominent midwife, whose life depended on surrendering three newborn children per month. While her mother is away, Gaia, who is seven at the time, spills her father’s hot honey all over her face. Scarred for life, Gaia cannot get married or give birth to any children because of her disfigurement. Her

Felicity Aulino’s article Rituals of care for the elderly in northern Thailand, discusses the care given to an elderly woman by her family. This woman, whose name is Tatsanii, fell and entered a coma which she would likely never come out of. Tatsanii’s family, mainly her daughters, had a “basic routine” of “bathing, diapering, turning, propping, stretching, powdering, massaging, medicating and feeding” their mother (Aulino, 1). While at first, this routine took three hours, the family eventually honed the time needed to one hour, which is good because they had to do this same routing four times a day. Taking care of Tatsanii was a ritual for the family, and because this routine was a ritual, “the actions themselves, rather than internal cognitive orientations, are of utmost importance” (Aulino, 6).

I asked my friend, concernedly, why she looked so different. He somberly replied that she had rheumatoid arthritis. He opened to tell me how, despite the available treatment, she was unable to complete her education or have a job because she could not walk in the evenings and had severe pains all night every night since her teenage and that she was never married and was dependent on her parents. For a 15 years old me, it was distressing. This experience exposed me to the reality of human suffering.

arrived at home at 3:00p.m. did my homework and at 4:00 p.m. I was thrown into adulthood in the blink of an eye when my mom uttered these five words “ Yakira I have breast cancer “ I started to scream no mama no, that’s not fair, I balled up in a little ball and my mama held me as I cried in her arms. My mother cried my tears and proceeded to tell me that she did not want to tell me because she did not want to burden me, that is why I love my mother