Scariest thing that has happened to me

This essay describes my scariest experience in life which happened two years ago in the second year of my graduation term. The Disclosure The local Red Cross society had organized its half yearly blood camp, choosing our college campus as the venue. I had always an inexplicable apprehension in donating blood, never having donated an ounce before. But on that particular occasion, many of my friends donated blood, which created a kind of social pressure on me to participate in the event.

On the last day of the camp, I went ahead and enrolled in the list of donors. It was slight pain and a little weakness, which was more imaginary than real, in my perception. A day later and I was feeling fine as ever. Things followed their usual routine for a couple of weeks and one day when I received an envelope from the Red Cross society, I assumed it to be a note of thanks from them. The shock that the content of that note gave me is still etched vividly in my memory.

In just one line it stated that my blood could not be accepted for donation as it was found HIV positive. Sweating and trembling I tried to comprehend the meaning of these words as they kept getting in and out of focus Effect and Impact I’d always thought that ‘earth shifting beneath the feet’ is a figure of speech- at that moment I found how true it could be. There was a sudden sense of collapse and devastation around of my world. My career plan, my friends, my family, my life, my dreams, they all were wiped off by that single line.

A moment ago I had years and years of time to achieve all that I had planned, and moment later I had been handed my death sentence. The worst part was I did not know whom to seek counsel. I was seeing myself as an anathema and I was sure the moment anyone hears about my state, I would be pronounced as socially dangerous and put into quarantine. The specter of impending death surrounded my vision and its fear impeded my rational and normal approach in life. I stayed up through next couple of nights, unwilling to waste my remaining days or hours in slumber.

I tried not to think about it, but surreal images of my last hours, with me alone and forsaken, kept floating before me. They took a more concrete shape in my dreams, which was another reason for my desire to forsake sleep. There was a continuous hammering inside me all the time-a fear that wanted to tear me from within and come out in open. I fought to keep it inside, and hid my mental agony, suffering and torture from even best of my friends and family. Very soon, the idea of suicide started to appeal me.

I argued repeatedly with myself on whether I should await the impending doom or shall I take my destiny in my own hands. But for a person like me who had always loved to live life, suicide had only a conceptual appeal. On many occasions, I took a gun in my hand; or leaned out of our 7th floor apartment, contemplating a jump, and found myself unable to do neither. On these occasions, I experience a surge of such pure anger and frustration that I was scared rather than committing suicide, I could murder someone in this state.

Unreasonably though a considerable part of my anger was devoted to Red Cross society itself- if they had not organized the blood donation camp, I had never been brought to face this fearsome situation. After Effects Two weeks later, I was visited by a batch-mate who had secured admission in the medical school. She was surprised at the unkempt state of my apartment- I was known to be finicky about cleanliness- and she deduced as much from my demeanor as by my general state that I was holding something within.

Once she forced out truth from me, she led me over to the local hospital for a full body check up-including blood and urine culture. She had refused point blank to accept the results of Red Cross and assured me that mistakes could occur in their analysis. The local hospital had to give its report after two days and those days were the tensest and perhaps scariest in my life-scarier than even all the previous weeks which I had spent under shadow of death.

It seemed incredible how my fate was being decided in a hospital laboratory some blocks away, and I could not do anything about it. I did not close my eyes for a moment in the two days, swaying between deepest dejection and slightest hope. Two days later when I received the envelope from the hospital enclosing my reports, I could not bring myself to open it and read it. There in my hand was my statement of life or death and I was mortally afraid to take a sneak in it.

It was for hours that I kept it clutched in my hands, unable to bring myself to see its content. In the evening my friend visited me again, specifically to know the result of tests. She took the report from me and as she was about to open it, I turned away from, unable to withstand the tension and the probable expression of doom on her face. For several second she did not speak and I felt I would implode-the tension was unbearable for me to withstand. Then she tapped me and said “Sorry to disappoint you.. but you are as HIV negative as one possibly can be! ”