With Time Comes Wisdom

Hi All,

What follows is the result of many, many sleepless nights due to my health. At the end of 2022, my health dramatically declined; as usual, writing is the only way I know how to process my feelings. Being chronically ill for coming up on eleven years and reaching new mental and physical lows all the time has brought out a new level of reflection in me. Below is a contrasting memoir of my life at both eighteen years old and twenty-eight years old. This was cathartic.

Let me paint you two parallel pictures.

Imagine a young woman. She is pale, but she’s also Irish, so it is no great surprise. She can be described as neither willowy nor skinny but rather slender and soft. Her hair is a cross between blonde and brunette. Her face is adorned in freckles that are neither a constellation nor a smattering but rather an army. This young woman wears baby pink Doc Martens, a sundress patterned with daisies and a second-hand cardigan from Oxfam.

She is eighteen years old.

Now, imagine, if you will, please imagine another young woman. In truth, the same young woman. She is pale, with bluish circles under her eyes and lips that are bitten to blistering. Her face has thinned as she has matured, and her cheekbones appear a little higher as the roundness of her youth was eviscerated over the years. This young woman wears grey biker shorts and a fraying, oversized Harvard sweater. There is a toothpaste stain above her right collarbone. Her hair resembles a bird’s nest atop her head but still holds some vestiges of summer sunlight.

This young woman is now twenty-eight years old. And she is tired.

Her name is Jen. Jennifer for work, Jens by her dad’s side of the family and JenJen by her one beloved sister. But once again, she is tired.

Eighteen-year-old Jen sits with her mom in a GP waiting room and has the energy to consider whether it is embarrassing to have one’s mother come into the doctor’s office. Still, Young Jen was not yet adept at manoeuvring medical staff alone.

Twenty-eight-year-old Jen sits in the GP waiting room like a sulking teenager. A lady nearby nurses her sick baby, with whooping cough, maybe. To her right, an old man who smells vaguely of whiskey tries to make eye contact with her. Old Jen would rather die than talk to another human being.

Both Jens hear the doctor approaching before she opens the waiting room door. Dr. Julie observes Young Jen with generosity and Old Jen with sagging energy. Young Jen smiles benignly and allows her mom to walk through the door first. Old Jen raises an eyebrow and gets to her feet before saying:

“I know, Julie, your favourite patient is back – try to contain your excitement.”

Dr. Julie’s office smells the same to both Old and Young Jen. The walls are a sage green shade in both pictures, though the latter timeline has added a few more unnerving mosaics of various fish species.

When Dr. Julie takes her seat, she turns toward the Jens with a wide smile. Bedside manner was not an issue in medical school, and this is why Jen’s mother frequented Dr. Julie in the first place. From her mother, Jen learned that basic kindness was difficult to find in medicine. It was there, yes, but it was oft-hidden under layer upon layer of administrative rigmarole.

“So, what can I do for you?” Dr. Julie asks, slapping her thighs lightly as though indicating that she is ready to get to work.

Young Jen blushes. She is nervous – not yet a veteran in this game.

“I have a really sore throat. Like I feel as though it’s on fire,” Young Jen explains, wincing over her words.

Her mother took over then, explaining that Jen had already missed two weeks of school and considering that she was in Leaving Cert year, she was concerned. Another round of antibiotics, perhaps, Jen’s mother prompted Dr. Julie. The last round had helped but not held.

After a brief examination of Young Jen’s overly sensitive gag reflex, another round was prescribed.

“Do we have to take penicillin?” Young Jen’s mother asks with genuine worry. “It’s just that after the first dose of the last round, I noted a massive decline in Jen’s mood.”

Young Jen nodded limply in support. It was true. It hadn’t been after the first dose, but rather after the first day, three doses total, when Young Jen had first wanted to kill herself.

Dr. Julie frowns at this.

“How odd, I’ve never heard of a reaction like it – but of course, you can take another form of anti-biotic.”

A new prescription was drawn up, and Young Jen and Not-Yet-Weary Mom were ushered from the room. Fifty euro, pretty please, said Donna at the front desk.

A decade later, twenty-year-old Jen crosses her legs in Dr. Julie’s uncomfortable office chair, holding herself tightly. She has things to remember, and remembering was growing more difficult by the day. The Post-It note in her hand with her precious notes scribbled down grows damp from sweat.

“So, what can I do for you?” Dr. Julie is a good doctor. Jen has always known this. But sometimes, even that wasn’t enough.

“Well, as you can imagine, I’m back here because nothing’s changed. The endocrinologist found nothing abnormal in my bloodwork and did not think my dropping blood pressure was unusual.”

Dr. Julie is already turning back to her computer, pulling up the patient report from the private hospital in town. Undeterred, Old Jen continues.

“He actually held his hands up to me and said, ‘I haven’t a rashers!’” Old Jen swallows over her irritation at this. “So, I’m back here. Same symptoms, no ideas.”

The rest of the appointment went as they all did. Dr. Julie asked how much Jen’s ill health was impacting her life. Work was becoming near impossible, and she hadn’t seen her friends in a long time if they still existed. But the anti-depressants got her out of bed, so the crisis team didn’t need to be called.

The list of symptoms was rehashed.

Dizziness. Rapid heartbeat. Tingly in hands and toes. Dry eyes. Aching joints. Constant thirst. Regular throat infections. Lack of appetite. Persistent headaches, occasionally becoming light-sensitive migraines. Digestive issues. Brain fog. Intermittent ear pain. Hand cramps. Muscle stiffness. Night sweats. Sinus congestion. Constantly swollen glands in the neck.

And worst and most debilitating, the bone-crushing exhaustion that had long since surpassed tiredness or even fatigue. No, Old Jen had been a walking corpse for close to a decade.

It took almost thirty minutes before Dr. Julie said what she had wanted to upon first sight of Old Jen.

“I think we’re at the end of the line here, Jennifer. I don’t know what else I can do for you.”

Old Jen’s will to live began to flake away at this point. If only Dr. Julie knew how close Old Jen was to becoming entirely untethered.

“I’m sorry, I truly am.”

And she was. There was no reason to doubt Dr. Julie’s sincerity.

Old Jen got to her feet, giving herself a minute to allow the black spots that disrupted her vision to quell and settle as blood flooded her feet. Sincerity, kind as it was, was useless to her now.

“Thank you for trying.” 

Old Jen wasn’t exactly sincere in return as she ushered herself from the sage-green, fishy room, suddenly desperate for open air.

Fifty euro, pretty please, said Donna at the front desk. And Jen simply smiled and complied.