Chapter 82

• “I’m not certain how old I was when it started. I just remember that I would suddenly have a queasy feeling in my stomach for a day before I started cramping and throwing up. When I was young my parents always thought it was a stomach virus because it would only last a few days before it disappeared. I was in school when it started happening more frequently, lasting longer and becoming more painful. They didn’t understand what was going on and the doctor couldn’t find any evidence of illness so they started punishing me for it instead of supporting me through the painful cramps. They thought that I was trying to get out of school even though I liked school and wanted to go.
• I got a bit more sympathy from the school nurse but eventually that waned as well. I was ten when I made the correlation between dad bringing a sick, injured or abused wolf into the territory and my intense and sudden illness. I attempted to tell dad about it for two years but the more I tried to convince him of what was going on with me the angrier he got with me. It was a hard two and a half years.
• My dad had always been close with all four of us but my constant sickness wore him down a lot. It was two in the morning when a sudden need to hurl woke me from my sleep. I spent an hour in the bathroom throwing up and I was in so much pain that it took everything I had to get up and go to my parents’ room. But I didn’t find the comfort I was looking for. Instead my father was livid that I woke him up over it.”