Everything was overwhelming me but most of all the white clean box with the image of wonder woman on it was making me crazy. “1,000 pieces” it read in the top corner and as soon as my mom pulled it out of her plastic shopping bag I almost threw it out the window with the view of a bunch of buildings made of stained glass and perfect desks. I can almost make eye contact with the workers in the building except I decide to hide because I’m in a cotton hospital gown. Mom on the other hand was in normal clothes as she started to open her newfound puzzle and work on it. Each piece had that fake glossy look with a cardboard feeling as you attached each part.

“First we start with the corner,” She was trying to teach me. I wasn’t going to give in. We had already passed the questions with my doctors and moved onto the machines. No longer humans, no. They stick you in a big white almost beige machine where you have to be still for hours on end. It’s loud too, not like the ringing in your ear you hear in a random moment but more like construction right by your window.

Even after all that you end up having to wait days for results while the pain continues. I could barely lift myself as my mother brought over the puzzle. The pain had made me tired, unable to keep my eyes open as my mom explained on and on about how this was going to help. With everything that’s going on, I can’t just put on a fake smile and join her. I had hated puzzles since I was little. Finding out the end image never appealed to me. Why make the image when it’s already on the box? Plus the patience, I’m already patient enough waiting to be diagnosed, I don’t want to wait as I look at each piece and scrunch my eyes till I figure everything out.

The doctors came in the next morning before the sun had even risen, I woke up to hearing their hushed voices and feeling the bright light on my lids. I slowly open my eyes to see a nurse checking on my I.V. and the doctors with light smiles on their faces.

“It’s normally hard to diagnose because the pain isn’t presented as severe as it is for her. It’s insanely rare in only a couple of fourhanded people.” I stared at them as they continued to talk. “There is no way to stop the pain. We just keep trying things. But the good news is we figured out what’s causing the pain,” I sat up slowly and they all looked at me.

“What is it?” I asked and my parents were holding each other.

“You have eosinophilia, normally we would see in it your esophagus. But in your case you have, it lined all-around your intestines and your stomach. It’s where your white blood cells attack the inner lining of your stomach.” They left after giving us a rundown of what the next few weeks are going to be like. Basically what it’s always been like. Emotions were overpowering and I was breaking down. Lunch finally came around and my parents went to go get real food, not hospital junk allowing me to have some space. That day I did something I’m not proud of. I decided to hide the puzzle, destroy the puzzle, anything that would end up with the puzzle being gone. Being in a hospital gown made the process of making this thing disappear ten times harder.

The puzzle and I were now alone.

Each piece is tossed across the hospital cart where you would normally put food, but I can’t exactly eat. I slowly got up as I grabbed the I.V. stuck in my arms cart. I dragged it over to the puzzle on the cold tiles flooded with the color white. I filled the cart with just a few pieces as my legs wobbled and I held onto the cart for dear support. I walked over one step at a time slowly taking breaks when my body got tired until I finally got to the bathroom door of the hospital room. I slowly opened it as I slid in and made it to the tub. I sat down at the corner of the beige looking oval space took a hand of the puzzle pieces in the cart and just dumped them in the tub, everything I put in the cart all shoved into the tub and then I stood up, closed the curtain, and went back to my hospital bed. A couple of days passed, my mom continued on the puzzle until one day she had no pieces left and a whole chunk of the puzzle was missing. I stayed silent, said nothing, but I was also happy. No more puzzles. I was happy for the first time in my hospital patient career I felt fulfilled.