Innocence
by Jasmine Maitland

            Innocence is being nine year old who doesn’t understand why her father is unable to stand up by himself or; feeding him through a turkey baser because he can hardly open his mouth. I can still replay the day it started, I was playing in my own little world like usual and my dad came in holding his chest saying he was having intense pain. I remember us jumping in the car and my mom going above the speed limit on Stewart;  I remember calling 911 letting the hospital know that we were on our way. We were able to get him there though finally they were able to determine that it was just Diabetic Neuropathy, so they gave him some pain killers and sent him home.

That was the one of the worst nights of my life. I ended having to sleep on the floor next my dad who was incapable of getting up and would fall giving him bruises that made him look like a weak piece of fruit. He laid in bed all night moaning in pain, waking me up every few minutes. Innocence is setting up pillows next to him to make sure he didn’t fall. The next day my mom and I were able to move him to the living room where he sat for three days not able to feed himself or even drink water. Innocence is trying to play doctor hoping that your bandage will fix your daddy.

The day that scared me the most was the day when he woke saying that he was seeing black worms all over his body and that he was talking to his dead Great Grandmother. My mom and I decided to take him to another emergency room that day. We sat there for about three hours and prayed that he was going to be alright. Innocence is making a card for him outside his hospital room for him. When the doctor came out he said that my father had been forty eight hours away from dying and twenty four from going into a comma because of the pain killers which he was given. The pills unfortunately reacted with another medicine that he was taking.

Innocence is going in and hugging your daddy drowsy in a hospital bed. He was able to finally recover from the incident.  Even now I worry every time my dad has pain hoping that we don’t have to go to the hospital.  Innocence is still calling your father Daddy when he has health problems.

Posted 06/23/2009