Xiomara Perez
July 2, 2009
English 210w
July 2002: The Morning after a Day at the Beach
It is the morning after a wonderful day at the beach in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico, on a hot July morning, and I woke up with the same splitting headache I had gone to sleep with. Everything hurt, my body was aching from the sunburn I had, my face was as red as a lobster and my eyes felt like they were being pulled out from the back of my skull. The pain was so intense that every time I moved my eyes around my headache would start throbbing. I didn’t know what was going on but after I came back from the beach last night I had noticed my vision was a little cloudy, but I figured it was the mix of salt water and sun that made my vision a bit blurry. So I go to sit in the kitchen table to eat breakfast with my cousins. As I ate my usual bowl of Coco Puffs cereal I decided I wouldn’t complain about the pain in my eyes and my headache and just deal with it and enjoy my day. After all, I am in Puerto Rico. My cousins and I began to talk about how much fun we had yesterday at the beach, and as we are talking I closed my eyes and opened them slowly because they were making me tear due to the pain. I closed my left eye and as I am looking through my right eye I noticed that I couldn’t see my cousin sitting right in front of me. I could only see an outline of her body and the rest was black. I was terrified and tested my left eye and I could see through that one. I thought, "What is happening with my right eye I can’t see?!" So then my cousin Christian suddenly says “Xiomara what happen why are you winking at me?” I said “I’m not winking at you, I was testing my eye cause they hurt and I can’t see through my right eye, it looks like if I was looking for you in a dark room.” My cousins and sisters start to freak out and go call my mom and dad. I began to cry and all I could see in my mind was flashes of how my life would be if I became blind now. My mom and dad storm into the room with my uncle and aunt behind them, my mom quickly came up to me and said “Let me see, which eye is it?” My dad then flashes a light in my eye and says “I don’t know what it is, I don’t see anything in your eye, let me call Dr. Pichardo, your pediatrician in New York, to see what he says." As I was waiting for my dad to call my pediatrician, my sisters are trying to console me and my cousin Vanessa comes up to me and says “Mara you really can’t see close your left eye and tell me if you see this, okay.” So I close my eye and I of course didn’t see anything. When I open my eyes she had a pencil about a centimeter from my eye. She then says, “Wow you really don’t see you didn’t even blink or anything.” At this point I am sitting at the couch helplessly when my dad comes to the living room and says, “Dr. Pichardo said we are going to have to fly out to New York because he is going to arrange something with a Neuropathologist and a Ophthalmologist so that we could meet with them to see what went wrong and caused you to lose your vision." I begin to cry again because I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I came to Puerto Rico to spend a month with my family and I have to cut my vacation short because I lost my vision. Everyone was trying to cheer me up but I was just too sad my summer was ruined and possibly my life. I thought I would never recover. My mom started packing my stuff and my dad and I were going on the next plane to New York, and my sisters and my mom where going to stay in Puerto Rico for the rest of the month.
This was probably the worst day of my life. Do you know what it is to be on vacation and have to return to New York early because you lost your vision from one eye and didn’t know how or why? It ended up that I had to take intravenous therapy for a week and medication through pills for about two months to recover. I went through a million different eye exams and went to the doctor every week. I also couldn't go outside without sunglasses and a hat because the sun would hurt my eyes. I was at home all summer and barely stepped out of the house until September when I returned to school. The doctors never found out what I had, and said they would win the medical badge of honor if they could figure it out. However I did get my vision back and although I have very bad eye sight I am happy that I have recovered and happy I could go to the beach again.
July 2, 2009
English 210w
July 2002: The Morning after a Day at the Beach
It is the morning after a wonderful day at the beach in Quebradillas, Puerto Rico, on a hot July morning, and I woke up with the same splitting headache I had gone to sleep with. Everything hurt, my body was aching from the sunburn I had, my face was as red as a lobster and my eyes felt like they were being pulled out from the back of my skull. The pain was so intense that every time I moved my eyes around my headache would start throbbing. I didn’t know what was going on but after I came back from the beach last night I had noticed my vision was a little cloudy, but I figured it was the mix of salt water and sun that made my vision a bit blurry. So I go to sit in the kitchen table to eat breakfast with my cousins. As I ate my usual bowl of Coco Puffs cereal I decided I wouldn’t complain about the pain in my eyes and my headache and just deal with it and enjoy my day. After all, I am in Puerto Rico. My cousins and I began to talk about how much fun we had yesterday at the beach, and as we are talking I closed my eyes and opened them slowly because they were making me tear due to the pain. I closed my left eye and as I am looking through my right eye I noticed that I couldn’t see my cousin sitting right in front of me. I could only see an outline of her body and the rest was black. I was terrified and tested my left eye and I could see through that one. I thought, "What is happening with my right eye I can’t see?!" So then my cousin Christian suddenly says “Xiomara what happen why are you winking at me?” I said “I’m not winking at you, I was testing my eye cause they hurt and I can’t see through my right eye, it looks like if I was looking for you in a dark room.” My cousins and sisters start to freak out and go call my mom and dad. I began to cry and all I could see in my mind was flashes of how my life would be if I became blind now. My mom and dad storm into the room with my uncle and aunt behind them, my mom quickly came up to me and said “Let me see, which eye is it?” My dad then flashes a light in my eye and says “I don’t know what it is, I don’t see anything in your eye, let me call Dr. Pichardo, your pediatrician in New York, to see what he says." As I was waiting for my dad to call my pediatrician, my sisters are trying to console me and my cousin Vanessa comes up to me and says “Mara you really can’t see close your left eye and tell me if you see this, okay.” So I close my eye and I of course didn’t see anything. When I open my eyes she had a pencil about a centimeter from my eye. She then says, “Wow you really don’t see you didn’t even blink or anything.” At this point I am sitting at the couch helplessly when my dad comes to the living room and says, “Dr. Pichardo said we are going to have to fly out to New York because he is going to arrange something with a Neuropathologist and a Ophthalmologist so that we could meet with them to see what went wrong and caused you to lose your vision." I begin to cry again because I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I came to Puerto Rico to spend a month with my family and I have to cut my vacation short because I lost my vision. Everyone was trying to cheer me up but I was just too sad my summer was ruined and possibly my life. I thought I would never recover. My mom started packing my stuff and my dad and I were going on the next plane to New York, and my sisters and my mom where going to stay in Puerto Rico for the rest of the month.
This was probably the worst day of my life. Do you know what it is to be on vacation and have to return to New York early because you lost your vision from one eye and didn’t know how or why? It ended up that I had to take intravenous therapy for a week and medication through pills for about two months to recover. I went through a million different eye exams and went to the doctor every week. I also couldn't go outside without sunglasses and a hat because the sun would hurt my eyes. I was at home all summer and barely stepped out of the house until September when I returned to school. The doctors never found out what I had, and said they would win the medical badge of honor if they could figure it out. However I did get my vision back and although I have very bad eye sight I am happy that I have recovered and happy I could go to the beach again.
As I said in class, the first page of this is just delightfully full of detail and, while I understand the desire to give us the entire story, there is a noticeable change between the beginning and the ending of the story. That's particularly true when it comes to telling rather than showing. Still, the last few lines, as I said last week, bring out this element--perfect for a child narrator--of being less worried about blindness than missing a day at the beach. That's wonderful, and it'd be great if it could be worked in to the piece without the summary at the end.
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