I Went to Visit my Younger Self

There has been a trend circulating on social media where you write about what you’d say to your younger self if you were to meet them for coffee.

It made me think a lot about younger me. I wouldn’t have been able to meet her in a coffee shop because younger me lived in hospital. Younger me couldn’t speak, was unable to eat or move. What would she look like? What would I say to her?

Then I realised that a lot of the people who are a huge part of my life now have never seen me when I was very seriously unwell.

So I decided to take a moment to do some free therapy and visit younger me…not in a coffee shop, but in a side room on the paediatric ward.

***

I went to visit my younger self in hospital. She was fifteen years old with dark glasses covering her eyes, lying flat in bed in a darkened room. It was filled with posters of Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean. She lay with cushions and teddies on her bed. I watched as she flinched with every noise because she was on the children’s ward, next to the games room and the kids would shout and throw balls on the other side of her wall. 

I tried to talk to her but even my whispered voice was too loud for her to cope with. I very gently held her hand and I think she smiled faintly. Then a nurse came in and told me she wasn’t allowed any visitors and that I had to leave.

I tried to visit her again, a year later. This time I wheeled myself into her cubicle and saw her haunting blue grey eyes staring at me. She looked terrified, her arms were by her side in massive casts from being straightened and I could see she was in absolute agony. There was blood on the pillow and a tube going into her neck. This tube was connected to a drip stand. She had only just come back from surgery to have a ‘central line’ fitted. She hadn’t even known what they were going to do. She was sixteen and had been held down by six theatre assistants and a weight put on her head to keep it still as her body shook uncontrollably. She looked up at the ceiling and tears fell uncontrollably down her face.

I gently wiped the tears away with my hand and plaited her hair that was matted with blood from the surgery. She was incredibly thin and her arms and feet were yellow and covered in bruises. She still couldn’t speak but given some time she could utter the start of some words in code which I could translate into a sentence.
“I’m so scared.”

I went to answer her and then a nurse came in and said that ‘Jess’ was still not allowed visitors because she was too sick.

I leaned on the bed and slowly stood up. I went to kiss her forehead, to make her feel less scared. Her eyes looked like they were pleading with me to stay. 
“It’s beyond hard at the moment, but things will get so much better, I promise you,” I said.
“D-d-nt…l-l-lea-ve m-m-e.” she whispered as she sobbed.

 I wanted to sit with her, to hold her tightly and tell her more, but the nurse told me once again that I had to leave.

I tried to visit her again the next year. She had moved to a different hospital that was so serene and peaceful. The grounds were covered with gardens and flowers and trees. But her room was still dark, the curtains were still pulled. It did look homely though, covered in cards and stars all over the ceiling. 

She looked really sick and was in visible pain. There was a dressing on the right side of her tummy. She had just come back from having emergency surgery to remove her appendix. She had been vomitting and saying for days that her stomach was hurting. 

She had now spent three years in hospital and was scared of being forgotten. She was worried about her little sister and dreaming of a day that they could live together and travel the world.

I put my hand in her hand and squeezed and to my delight, she squeezed it back.
“Will I ever get out of this place?” She asks me. It was so nice to hear her voice, even though you can tell how much it took for her to say it.
“Oh yes, you will. Not only will you go home, but you will visit other countries, you’ll even end up living in a different county to Kent.”
She smiled and rested her head back on the pillow. “I’ve forgotten how it feels to be well. Will I remember?”

I smiled at her. “No you won’t really remember. I don’t think I do now. But that will never stop you.”

She looked worried and winced in pain. “Will my body always hurt like this?”

“Every day you will suffer with pain, but you know it does get easier to manage and will be far less than how much you are suffering now.”

She lay there thinking. “Will I ever get gaslit by doctors again? I don’t want to endure that forever.”

I looked at her sadly. “Well there will be many more occasions when you do suffer horrendously in hospital,” I said. “There will be many more ambulance trips and many more hospital stays and a lot more trauma. But like a phoenix from ash you will reach the rock bottom of your health, and then you will rise again and build back up and go onto achieve so much more.”