Trauma - A Narrative Essay

The overwhelming smell of freshly cut grass and a musty locker room made my senses delude to the excitement of finally playing tackle football. The initiation of the seventh-grade summer workouts was merciless, as exaggerated by a 12-year-old kid. The struggle to lift barbells barely over my body weight, the 5 laps around the crooked fence outlining the middle school field first thing every morning, and the heat that girdled the outskirts of every cone drill all coalesced into an extremely unforgivable predicament. But, I thought I dealt with the aching muscles and occasional expulsion of my breakfast as well as I could have. That is until I felt a rather odd flutter inside my chest. It was a strange beating of mixing patterns. It was my heartbeat, but it was strange. I thought nothing of it, as I was brimming with adrenaline at the time. After a few more instances, however, I decided it would be best to inform my father. I did so, and he did not seem too distressed, largely because he never witnessed what happened when my heart would palpitate. He never really understood because I never knew what to tell him. I continued playing sports and being as normal as a kid could be until it happened once more, not unusually, but this time it lasted far longer than it had at any time prior. It forced my legs to crash amongst the itchy grass and allow me only a singular moment to recover and catch my breath. My dad—who finally was seeing what I had been dealing with --and I concluded that it would be in our best favor to tell my mother about what had been happening. She was rightly concerned when confronted with the issues, but she remained calm and researched everything about the subject of heart palpitations and irregular beatings. She consulted her doctor friends, and she oversaw my actions.

Life after that remained normal, as normal as a flutter every other week was. From that point on for about three years, I dealt with the damage as everyday impeded-- I being mostly unbothered. It was not until the end of my sophomore year that I realized the sheer mass of the mental toll that was burdening me behind the foreground. My sophomore spring game came as fast as one of my beatings and was in every frame of focus that I held grasp of. I was on an unknown sunken in the ground field playing a mismatched-looking team I had never played against, but my frantic zeal was oddly sufficient to keep my mind from wavering. I played the first half as well as I could have. I never missed my assignment during the play; I sensed the feeling that I was finally becoming comfortable in my position and the sport.

On one fateful play, I pushed through the wall of the team’s “certified big guys” trying desperately to protect their star. I then tackled the opposing team's quarterback with an overwhelming thud paired with two grunts; on impact, I knew what had happened. My heart started racing, fluttering, trembling, vibrating at immense speed. As I looked down at my shoulder pads, I could see my chest beating outwardly through them in a sort of cartoon fashion. I raised my head to the stands and motioned my hand on top of my chest in a beating manner. My dad was always on the lookout, so he promptly saw this and came down in an instant. He already knew. We made our way to a conveniently positioned ambulance that was parked on the side of the caved-in field and told the EMTs my problem. They scurried around and tried to keep my pulse down for roughly 20 minutes, but nothing worked as my pulse remained at 269 bpm (beats per minute). They were more distressed than I, as they didn’t want to mess this moment up. Ice, breathing exercises, applied pressure, they tried it all. It was not until the team trainer said that we needed to go to the hospital when it suddenly ceased to beat at all; though, it steadily started back up and returned to the average 80 bpm for resting.

Much trauma is sudden and apparent in its initial influence on a person's livelihood, but mine was lethargic and concealed in the depths of my mind, ever-growing. The problem with the invisibility of my pain is the fact that it was voluntary. I did not relish the opportunity to consider the pain caused or the future ramifications. It seemed stupid, insignificant. Why should I contemplate? I should be moving on-- to better conditions-- to a better view. This is, in a way, how I dealt with all my struggles; I still do in some cases. The art of ignorance was my signature mastery. For most of my life, this skill was beneficial when confronted with trivial matters (trivial when compared to my true issue) but those matters were only those of mere inconvenience; they were also not joined to me. They were not joined in the same way as my heart, for my heart has always been with me and will always be; so, when the true trauma is locked within the heart, it is—in a way-- inescapable. That is my trauma: my heart condition. And, trauma works funnily. It may disappear. It may resurface. It may continue.

Surgery or medicine was inevitable, and I chose surgery-- out of the idea of a speedy recovery—to be back on the field; however, my choice was irrelevant as the procedure failed, but what it did not fail in was giving me false hope. After I began taking medicine, I slowly worked my way back into sports. I kept playing football, I kept running track, and I kept living as normal a life as I could. I finished my senior year of football with one of the best seasons our school has had in over 5 years (having an odd COVID-related 9-2 record). I became supremely confident in my body's ability to act normally, to be silent. But in my escapades towards normality, I quickly slipped on the mountain trail and fell to the base where I met with an old pal.

At a track meet in April of 2021, I was running a 110-meter hurdle race when I felt the beating. I finished the race only by the grace of God. I walked back to the line after finishing and attempted to stand up straight and look good next to my competitors. The only problem was that I could not see my competitors. I could not see the crowd or the track before me. I could not hear the cheers or boos. I was completely shellshocked. Seas of white clouded my eyes, and white noise collapsed upon my eardrums. The only sense I had was my touch. I felt my dad grab my arm and take me to the side of the field. I told him what was happening, and he got the trainer. They didn't understand what was happening since they had no previous experience with my conditions. We rushed back home, which was 45 minutes away. We simply expected the ordeal to cease after some time as it had always done. It never quit. We rushed to the emergency room, and they tried everything. Drugs, medicine, therapy. None of it worked. They had to lodge the biggest IVs they had into both of my arms so as to not blow-up my veins from all the doses. They shot a blood thinner into my stomach that forced my body to crunch in on itself, stinging like a thousand hornets. A special drug ran through my veins down to my toes and back to my eyebrows, tightening my entire being, making breathing a chore. Every cord known to man connected me to every machine a hospital could give. Nothing. It kept pounding. The doctor came into my room and told me, “We may have to shock you.” I admit, I was taken back, but I trusted their methods.

Nonetheless, they felt more confident sending me to a different hospital with more resources, so they sent me 30 minutes away in an ambulance. They did end up shocking me to attempt to reset my heartbeat. After, when I looked at the heart monitor, I saw a whopping 50 bpm. I had never seen it that low. The procedure thankfully worked after (what I soon found out to be) 6 grueling hours of an unwavering 190 bpm heart rate. Still, they felt that another surgery was mandatory, for my condition had now turned into something far deadlier than my previous two, especially when unchecked in younger people. Consequently, I stayed overnight with my father and went under surgery the next day. The doctor said it was a success, but the recovery will be lengthy. Although the process was grueling, I greeted it warmly, and I complained little. I joked with the nurses and made some of them cry because I was leaving. I sang, laughed, and smiled. I believe this is partly because I knew I would be fine eventually—partly because I never wanted to accept that it happened. I was not planning to participate in any more sports or anything too physically demanding, so I was hopeful.

My life since then has changed. I began to recognize the mental toll that all these experiences had on my being. I attempted to accept them as the past and a new life was just idling to begin. But my blood continues to pump oddly. I have occasional palpitations. Truthfully, I believe my body will never be normal. I will never have the body I aspire to have. I will always have this gridlock between my body and mind. Tears would flow, body would spasm, thoughts would race, acceptance would be resisted. Self-pity engulfed me; however, I left it all on the table for my girlfriend, who had held my side throughout this all. I told her how scared I was that my heart would never be fixed. She said, "So, what if it doesn't?"

My heart was never a choice, it was always a burden: a burden that allows me to write this essay. The balance of problems and solutions is the key to every action, decision, or concept-- the key to life. Nothing will ever be fully solved; neither will there be more problems than possible to handle. Our lives should not be wasted being enveloped in mysteries we are not meant to solve. Our lives as they pertain to this very moment are predicated upon the involvement we have in them, but if that involvement overtakes our souls, then our souls are lost to the world, trapped within society, anxiety, stress, confusion, and fear. Our trauma teaches us to trust in ourselves and the forces which we are not able to see; otherwise, a long time of growth can be regressed and dwindled by the worries of the world.