A Broken Body

• Mia Zamattia, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2018

“Patient number 24” says the middle aged man at the front desk. He looks bored. His deep brown eyes are glazed and they frequently drift to the noisy clock ticking away in the corner of the room. The uncomfortable yet familiar chairs creak in response to every move my underweight, frail body makes and the strong smell of disinfectant tickles my nose and burns my sensitive lungs every time they try to breathe. Despite this, I actually don’t mind it here. Royal North Shore Hospital has been my second home since I was six months old, when I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. A condition where you feel like you are drowning in your own body. It’s as fun as it sounds. I’m here a lot because of it; therefore I pretty much know this waiting room better than my room at home. I know every little crack, every smell and every piece of furniture. Not to mention all the people in it. Except for the man at the front desk. He’s new. “Patient Number 25” he calls. That’s me. I pick up my tired body and head to the examination room. The room where good things turn to bad and bad turns to worse. Or maybe that’s just for me. It’s just as if every appointment my lung function falls, every symptom in my body worsens and the likelihood of an admission for IV antibiotics increases. I’m just not sure how much more bad news I can handle. All these appointments are to keep me alive, yet I wouldn’t call this living.
“You’re lung function is down to 30%. You’re climbing to the top of that transplant list” my doctor says. I nod. I don’t know what else to say. I’m not shocked by this news; breathing has been harder, I’ve coughed up more mucus and blood than ever before and my already debilitating fatigue has proved itself as one of my biggest symptoms. It's fatigue that sucks the life out of you, and forces you to cut everything from your life to sleep.
The idea of a transplant doesn’t frighten me anymore. Nothing really does. The idea that CF will eventually take my life has weighed me down and made me feel as if I had a tonne of bricks on my shoulders for my entire 16 years of existence. And after a while, you get over the fact that the disease you try so hard to fight will win. Sometimes it’s hard to keep pushing yourself to fight, to keep doing your treatments that eventually start to take over your life, when you understand this.
As I walk out of the hospital, I wonder how much longer I will be able to handle having CF. Having a mind and a body that are so out of sync. My mind, an energetic, happy, curious 16 year old girl, trapped in a sick, tired, broken body that longs for rest. But just how long can two essential components of life work together when they are so different? I don’t know. All I know is I hope to live to see the day when CF stands for Cure Found.