“Mom, you have got to believe me.” I said hysterically, close to tears.

“Honey,” she said “There is no way that a clown’s nose explains those red spots on your arm.”

“I am telling you the truth.” I cried adamant to earn her trust.

“We will just go to the doctor and let him decide.” She said soothingly, wrapping me in her arm. “Everything is going to be all right.”
But it wasn’t alright. Not even close. I had woke up that morning with red spots all over my hand and lower arm. Blotchy, itchy, and ugly spots that swallowed up my once normal-looking arm, which could only be from one thing. The clown that I had accidently touched at the haunted house. I knew I was right; I just had to prove it to everyone else.
“The tests came back unclear.” Said Dr. Evans in a deep and serious sounding voice that you always hear on those medical shows, when a doctor is about to give the patient some bad news. He was tall, chubby, and pretty aged looking. But otherwise, he was a pretty nice guy. “Unfortunately” he continued “that means that we will have to perform surgery in order to reduce the risk of anything serious from occurring.”
Now, most of you would probably envision me freaking out at this point. But surprisingly, I was pretty calm about it. Surgery didn’t really scare me that much. I had always thought that anesthesia was really neat. It was just something that had always interested me. Perhaps one of the reasons that this didn’t faze me was because I could finally prove to my mom (who I am sure was even more nervous than I was) that something serious was really going on, and I wasn’t just making this all up.

Two weeks later, it was already the day that I was scheduled to have surgery. They had to make some adjustments to squeeze me in on such short notice because it was “an urgent situation” as the receptionist phrased it. My mom slowly walked me into the waiting room, and we sat there together for a moment, nervously twiddling our thumbs. Finally, Dr. Evans appeared from out of a hallway with his scrubs on.

“Camilla Rockdale” he said, looking around for someone to raise their hand. I raised my hand, and right away he found me (thanks to the highlighter red spots now even more noticeable.)


“Ah yes” he said smiling, “we are ready for you now.”
My mom couldn’t go into the room with me; she was only permitted to see me after surgery. I could see the tears clouding up in her eyes.

“Mom,” I whispered “I am going to be fine, don’t worry.”

“Oh I know” she said dabbing her eyes.

“And listen, I know you don’t believe me, but I know that this is all because of that clown’s nose. I have thought about it, and this the most logical solution I could think of.”

“Okay sweetie” she said, holding my hands in hers “we will just have to see what the doctors say about it.”

“Fine” I said, still appreciating that she made an effort to convince me she believed me, if only a little bit.

“You better go now,” she said, standing up and giving me a hug, “I love you.”

“I love you too mom” I said smiling, turning towards the doctor.

“Hello Camilla” Dr. Evans said.

“Hello.” I said in return, a few butterflies learning how to fly in my stomach.
I followed Dr. Evans down the hallway, and into a room that they called the “pre-operation” room. It had a bathroom and about 10 hospital beds on wheels with all of the equipment attached to it. Dr. Evans opened a cabinet towards the back of the room, and handed be a gown to put on.

“You know what to do. You can use that bathroom of you like.” He said, signaling me towards it.

“Okay” I said, taking the gown from him. I tried to act polite, but I despised theses gowns. I always felt so violated when I had to wear these things. I unenthusiastically slipped on the gown and neatly folded the clothes. When I stepped out of the bathroom, a female nurse had replaced Dr. Evans. This relieved me because frankly having a guy in the room when you had that scrap of clothing barely covering you was just awkward. The nurse was short, bubbly, and exuberant (not really my type of person).

“Hello, I am Nurse Reiner” she said in a lively tone “this is going to be your bed for the day, so if you could just go ahead and hand me your clothes and go ahead and get comfortable in your new bed, than we can get started.”
She said all of this in a very eager tone, and I could tell that she worked with the younger kids. But I did what she said anyways (you never know what kind of punishment they could give you when you are under anesthesia.) I handed her my clothes and carefully (holding the back of my gown together very tightly) got situated in the bed. It wasn’t memory foam or anything, but it really wasn’t that bad. Before I knew it, the nurse was at my side, pressing some buttons and getting all of her devices in place.

“Are you ready for your IV?” she said, holding the needle like it was some kind of toy.
I nodded my head and closed my eyes. I felt a very sharp burst of pain, and all of my muscles tightened. But then it was over. Quick and simple. I hoped that the rest of the surgery went as smooth as that had.

“Okay, are you ready for the anesthesia?” she said, looking at me with that same smile.

“Don’t I have to be in the operation room first?” I asked, trying to stall.

“No, we will just wheel you in there after you are asleep.” She said, like it was something that she had already expected me to know.

“Oh...Okay” I muttered looking around anxiously.

“Now, I am going to inject you with some of this magical stuff, which will have you floating in the clouds. Before you know it, your surgery will be done.”
Yea, she was definitely used to working with kids.

“Alright” I said, rolling over so that I didn’t have to face her bright face anymore. It was beginning to blind me.
And, as she had promised, she injected me with the anesthesia, and I slowly felt myself drifting off into Camilla world. I was halfway awake now, the rest of me floating away. The nurse rubbed my head, but I didn’t seem to care. They told me later how I proceeded to carry on conversation with her about the time I went to Brazil even though I have never even been out of the USA. The last think I remember is them wheeling me down the hallway, while I was almost fully in crazy land. Then, I said something that somehow stuck with me throughout my travels to my dream world influenced by anesthesia.
“I dooon likkke thoseeee clownssssssssss” was the jumble that came out. Little did I know how ironic that phrase would soon turn out to be.
When I woke up after surgery, my mom was sitting right beside my bed. She was reading a magazine or something, but I could tell that she had been crying. Though I wanted to ask her how everything went, I wasn’t sure I was prepared to speak yet. I just closed my eyes and pretended that I was asleep. It was until a bit later that I realized the pain in my arm. I couldn’t look at it yet, because I didn’t want my mom to think I was awake. The one thing I knew was that there was now a slight stinging all the way up to my mid-arm section. Though I suppose I was already on pain killers, I was already starting crack under the amount of pain I was experiencing. It was like band-aids being ripped off one by one, over and over again. I couldn’t take it any longer. I slowly opened my eyes (so it would look like I was just waking up) and gave a louder that usual sigh, to get her attention.
“You’re awake!” she said excitedly, like she hadn’t expected it.
“Mmm hmm” I muttered, avoiding conversation.

“Well, the surgery went as planned!” she said, patting my shoulder.

“Good” I said plainly, regretting my decision to wake up.

“But, you are going to have to stay here overnight.” she said, adjusting the pillows.

“Fine” I said, hoping she would get the clue that I didn’t want to talk to her anymore.
The rest of the day slipped by without me really knowing what was going on. I mostly just slept, and told the nurse to give me some more pain killers (even though I never saw her do it.) My mom of course hovered over me, asking me a million questions. I had already told her that she didn’t have to stay with me for the rest of the night, but she insisted. So I let her, because I was too weak to fight with her. I think a couple friends and family members stopped by to deliver flowers and cards, but I don’t remember ever talking to them. Later I would have to send out thank-you cards or something, but I didn’t care as long as I didn’t have to talk to anyone. I remember Isabel coming to see me, and flicking me on the forehead.

“Anyone home?” she yelled in my ear loudly. I just grunted. I would text her later.
Finally, it was night time. I was very thankful for this, because I could sleep without anyone bothering me. Mom had situated a chair to sleep in, and had already begun to doze off. When I was sure that she had drifted off for the night, I turned the TV off. I closed my eyes, expecting to fall asleep in a split-second. But surprisingly, I didn’t. I had gotten so much sleep throughout the day that I was wide awake now.

“Oh great” I thought to myself.
I continued to close my eyes, and elevated my bandaged arm. I just laid there, and tried to count sheep, and clear my head. I turned over on my side, only to see a strange shadow in the corner of the room. Oddly, the shadow vaguely resembled that of a clown.

“I don’t remember seeing that before” I whispered quietly, already starting to become nervous.

Then it started coming towards me.