I once knew a brave, stubborn boy who became quite popular amongst the rest of us for how willing he was to defy the things that we feared the most.
During our freetime in the yard, the boy would play daredevil with some of the ancient trees – jumping from one to the next, or backflipping off of a limb and onto his feet.
It was exciting, until he misjudged the integrity of one of the branches he was balancing on and fell. We all saw the cuts on his arms, and the blood that was soaking up the grass below him.
But he stood right back up and kept on going.
After a few short hours, the squirrely daredevil was now feverish and could barely keep his eyes open. We would watch him get up from his bed and pace, confused as to why he couldn’t catch his breath, and then he would disappear again.
It would be more than week later that he reappeared for freetime – but he wasn’t a daredevil anymore. Instead, one of our stationed medics parked his wheelchair at the sidelines of the yard so that he could watch, while receiving round-the-clock intravenous care.
He was pale, weak.
I remember catching one last glimpse of him. His expression was vacant, but he was searching for something in his brain. Perhaps himself.
Once the adventurous side to him was gone, he became nothing more than a damaged version of the rest of us – and eventually, we never saw or heard from him again.
You’re poisoned, Kendall. In your attempt to fight off the effects of your damages, you’ve proven that your body is susceptible to change – just like all of us!
Unfortunately, you’ve also proven that you can devolve from that change because without the things that set you apart from the rest, it’ll be your sepsis that takes control of your last adventure.
Except, it won’t be the adventure you intended.
This one is going to be far more challenging – slower and sedated.
As the poison mixes in with your bloodstream, things may get a little blurry once the anaphylaxis gets settled in. And don’t forget about your red-alert risks of adrenal insufficiency – we’re talking about a complete tank-drop of your blood pressure in seconds flat.
Before you know it, Kendall, you’ll amount to nothing more than a depressed, vomiting mess with a laundry-list of hemorrhages and a bad case of hyperplasia. To compensate for the lack of pain you feel, everything that you’ve ever been confident of when it comes to yourself will be compromised.
I can only imagine that you’ll look at things retrospectively and wish that you had the pain instead, but sometimes —
We’re the boy that daringly stares down the train, or the one that eggs on the shooter to pull the trigger – or the one that leaps from tree to tree. And if you are, the hardest fact you must face is that eventually…
The train wins.