I’m not sure how much time had passed, but in my memory, the part that took the longest was getting admitted to the hospital. That seemed to take forever. The rest seemed like only minutes, but it took days.
Earlier in the week, I tried to enroll in high school but was denied admission because I was only seventeen and didn’t live with a guardian. George and I were living with his older brother in east Texas after “running away” from our hometowns. The following day, I applied for my first job. I’d seen an ad in the classifieds that Western Sizzlin’ was hiring servers, and George drove me to fill out an application. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I got dressed in a pair of his shredded Levi’s to go to the restaurant; I was not dressed for success.
He waited outside while I filled out the application and was interviewed by the manager. I tried to look somber when I walked out to the Blazer after getting hired on the spot, but I couldn’t help myself. I was to start my first job the next day… wearing pants without holes in them.
I reported for training the next day on time and properly dressed. I was enthusiastic, but I wasn’t feeling well. I felt feverish, and the pain that I had started experiencing during sex seemed to be lingering. Within a couple of hours of my first training session, I collapsed in pain on the floor of the dining room.
George picked me up at the restaurant and tried to take me to the free clinic, but I was in no condition to wait in a line that extended out the clinic's doors and around the corner of the building. We went back to the apartment, and George packed all of our things into the Blazer so we could go back to West Texas. It could have been hours or days before we left. The first I recall of leaving was being pulled over for something just outside of town. The next thing I remember is meeting George’s family doctor back in his hometown. The doctor had a handlebar mustache and very kind eyes. He made arrangements for the nearest hospital in the city to expect my arrival for an emergency surgery. I had developed a cluster of ovarian cysts that were threatening to burst and squeezing my appendix to burst as well. The words “life-threatening” were used.
