Shynycia Richardson

Ms. Bristow

Dramatic Writing Film, Television, and Theater

29 August 2022

Childhood Narrative

When I first heard the topic Childhood Narrative not gonna lie I was a bit scared. Sometimes I

like to joke that I have short term memory loss but, to some extent that is actually true, and my family

wouldn’t even correct me if they heard me say this. I mean, I couldn’t even remember what I ate for

breakfast this morning. I may have tons of happy memories from when I was a child but I couldn’t tell

you in vivid detail, what it would be like. The one thing that I do unfortunately remember, were the 3

days of hell and 2 days of recovery.

I don’t remember exactly what day, my first day of hell started, was I know it wasn’t a school

day. I was about 9 years old, it was hot and I was on my way to a Girl Scouts meeting. It was a long

meeting and we were talking about what we could do to stay green. I was honestly feeling good through

out the day and was not expecting the sudden cold flash that hit me later that day. Seeing as I was living

on an island, the temperature never went anything below 80, even at night the lowest is honestly 75

degrees.

But the cold that hit me that day was one of the worst. My mom was in the grocery store and I

was playing in the car and when she came back I immediately told her how I was feeling. She checked

my forehead and felt that I was getting a little hot so she took me home to give me some medicine and

put me to sleep.

On the way home I was feeling worse, but I pushed forward and when we arrived home, I was

honestly felt better. I hopped in the shower and that was when I realized it was the calm before the
storm, the cold hit me full force. I was literally shivering, in the shower. My mother came in and saw me

shivering and just thought I forgot to turn on the hot water, but soon realized that wasn’t the case.

Even when the water was turned off, I was still shivering and my mother was getting worried.

She gave me some kind of medicine and put me to sleep. But even when I woke up I was still shivering,

in fact my temperature actually went up during the night. So that morning she took me to the clinic and

the doctors told her it was an allergic reaction to the type of air conditioning that was used. He gave me

a diagnosis on paper and told us we could get the medicine later.this was the start of day two.

My mom was so relieved and immediately gave me the medicine. We came home and she

carried me to bed saying everything was going to okay. Unfortunately for her that saying was false.

Apparently, the medicine the doctor gave me was making my fever worse. I had woken up to my mother

crying while on the phone, she told me that she had been trying to wake me up, but I wasn’t getting up

so she called my dad.

In response my dad came over wrapped me in a blanket and took me to a different clinic. He

really couldn’t believe that this was just an allergic reaction to the air conditioning. This doctor told us

that it was still an allergic reaction but to peanuts instead of the air conditioning. My dad was honestly

worried, and continuously asked the doctor if he was sure of this diagnosis because he other doctor said

something different.

I then spent that day laying in bed watching SpongeBob, high off meds. Crying cause my

stomach hurt. Crying cause my body was cold but was hot to the the touch. Crying cause my mother was

crying. Crying, just because I could. But guess what, I still didn’t get better. My mom was honestly

getting frustrated, and was ready to cuss someone out. On day 3, I still wasn’t better so my mom took

me and my dad to the ER and started screaming. My dad had to hold her back until we I got checked in

and saw a doctor. This doctor told me that I actually had the flu but because of all these medicine these
other doctors where giving me, it was messing with my body, so I got a shot in my butt and went home. I

don’t remember much after that seeing as I knocked out but I do know I was out of pain.

On the fourth day, I was honestly feeling better. I still slept but not as much as I did on the third

day. I ate actual food that wasn’t soup and felt ready to liberate the world. On the fifth day, my parents

deemed me healthy and I finally came out the house. I went to my Girl Scouts meeting, I did not sit

under the air conditioning, nor did I eat there peanut flavored snacks. I did not want to risk getting sick

yet again. So yeah, this is where I got my fear of doctors from. Understandable right? But it’s gotten so

bad to the point where I haven’t been to the doctor in over 5 and a half years. Those three days

traumatized both me and my parents, so much that I had to name this experience.

“The time I almost died…”