Pulga Torio . Flea Tory

1985

My grandmother, alias Dilia, started doing an undercover operation. She explained that she was having woman days again, but that it was wrong. So her neighbor recommended hormonal treatment, and the farmacist gave her birth control pills under the counter. She was ashamed and did not want to expose this situation to my mother, as she was so anxious all the time.

So after 2 months, as being 65 and the situation continued more dramatically, she confessed. My mother called her obstetrician and the testing started. 

I was accustomed to the hospitals, the labs, the kneedles, the pain. The named suited me, Marcela is dedicated to the Lord of War, and I was a warrior in from of my real asthma, and in front of the Munchausen my mother developed with all of her daughters. As in Sharp Objects, her girls were wounded dolls, to take for medical attention ALL the time.

Well, I was afraid they would vaccinate Dilia to stop the bleeding, as they did to immunize me from asthma for a year, 54 times, once a week.  But after my mother sold her jewellery, our Betamax and asked my father for a loan that he denied, as he did not have "obligation" with her family, she had enough to pay for all the scanning in the Cancer Foundation. 

The obstetrician had talked to the oncologist, she needed immediate surgery. Her son had died the year before due to metastasis, my great grandmother too and my dearest uncle died 20 years later from it too. The doctor just said, we need to save her life, and then we irradiate her.

Well, the suffering began. Really fearful for her soul, she met a lady that offered help with that. She met her while she was giving these pictured magazines with a lot of bible explanations and drawings. She came the next day, gave her a orange summary of the Bible with a lot of pictures like a cartoon book. For 6 months, they read together, this Jehovah's Witness gave her peace and after each session, Dilia shared the lesson.

So Dilia, my sister Caro and me heard about the genesis, about a snake, about noe, about king David, about king Salomon. I peaked to the end, and the book was scary, with fire and people running , and Armageddon. I asked... When is this? She theorized it was to happen in 20 years, when I would be an adult. 

She mentioned that she heard that catholics had pictures of a place between earth and the next step, hell or heaven. She just wanted to rest, leave in peace. The transition was some place with fire, Calle purgatory. Today I know it's to purge.... Something. But I only knew another word Pulga (flea), so I assumed that the fire sensation I felt siting in dirty places, was similar to this fleatory (purgatorio in my mother tongue Spanish). 

So, I mentioned that she was a great replacement to my own "angry all the time" mom. I did not remember much of my traveling dad, as he only came once a month and he just sleep in weekends. He liked whiskey and friends too much. So, he was whiskelized most of the time home. He required us to guard his sleep, all smelly and harsh, hugging us like a huge bear. He hurted me a couple of times, I did not know my krav maga self defense yet.

So again, got cut with the telenovela mode. Dilia was 4 years more with pain and dysfunction, with those " fleas of cancer" eating her alive. Yes, my mom explained with a anatomy book how cancer made the white cells massacre the rest of he body. 

Today, 38 years later, the fleas have come for me. It seems that the nervous systems is tired of insomnia, and systems will shot down. I get bites every now and then. I need to call my father's  only sister to ask her about my other grandma's fleas. She had a decrepit symptoms, sclerosis. She had it by 50 and left by 56. She could not move. I did not meet her, but I was going to be named as her. On the last moment, my mother decided to change my fate to Marcela.... Mars warrior. 

So, I am in purgatory with exams, results and feeling that the fleas are getting away with it.