Page 9 of Lift Me Up

While thoroughly confused by my rescuer's confidence in getting me out of the floating metal death trap, one that’s now being illuminated from the light of a hallway above the elevator ceiling, I realize I’m stuck in between floors.

“How do you plan to get me out? Are you going to turn the elevator back on?”

“No, we can’t do that,” he tells me before turning around to talk to someone outside the elevator shaft.

“Everything okay in there?” N asks.

“The um… technician? Fire dept? I don’t know. Someone is hanging out in the ceiling of the elevator. And, apparently, they’re going to get me out–”

“–through the ceiling.”

As I hear the tail end of the sentence and my eyes widen. “Oh, hell no,” I say in response to the rescuer turning back to me.

N’s voice comes through again. “What are they saying?”

“That they’re going to get me out through the ceiling….” I turn back to the man in the sky. “Excuse me, sir. You do realize I’m fat and absolutely not going to fit through that tiny ass square, right?”

“Don’t worry. We’ve got this.” He disappears again, and then I see him tying what looks like rope, or some material, into a detailed knot.

“Supposedly, they’ve got this, N,” I say while turning back to the speaker, then glancing to the camera, hoping he sees me.

“Right. Well, I’m… glad you didn’t die, G.” His voice is soft, but distant.

I press my lips in a thin line. “Me too. Although the jury’s not out if they think a little tiny piece of rope is going to work.”

“I think it’s best to let the professionals take it from here. I’m glad I could help you, G. Good luck… with everything.”

Slowly, I wave to the camera. How do you say goodbye to someone you just bared your soul to? Told your fears, all the things you don’t share with strangers? I can hear it, the moment he hangs up. The elevator becomes eerily silent. I stare at the speaker for far too long, thinking he’ll come back.

I never even got his full name.

“Ready to get out of here?” the man in the ceiling asks me, causing me to look up at him, and the promising light of day.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

CHAPTER FIVE

GEORGIE

They bruise and scrape every possible piece of visible skin on my hips, thighs, and calves, but after two very long hours that felt like an eternity, I’m free. I will never be using the elevator again and I might have bruises for the rest of my life from where my hips hit the framework of the elevator ceiling, but I’m free. Also, I never imagined I’d be able to say I stood on top of an elevator car or be able to see just how close I was to death as I look up to see the elevator cables deteriorating in front of my eyes. But I guess this is my life now.

The second I am inside my home, I get naked. I don’t care that I left the curtains wide open in the living room for the world to see, I peel out of the suit and throw it so far across the room they should hire me to pitch for a major league baseball game. That’s the last time I ever wear that damned thing again. I go to my room and look in my full-length mirror at myself, trying to figure out the root cause of the start of all my troubles.

It’s not hard to find the monster in question that soiled the suit, and chair, and inevitably set my luck on a course destined to crash and burn in the form of a stuck elevator. Left thigh, right where I suspected it to be; the size of a dime on the surface of the skin but the size of a marble or bigger underneath. What was once a red and angry lesion-looking sore is now red and open and weeping, and very angry for being unattended to for so long. I sigh, just thinking about how many more of these spots will come because of the stressful day I’ve just dealt with. This is what I have to look forward to.

I’ll start out my next few days waking up to more and more flares, wondering how the hell one even managed to tunnel to a place I’ve never had a spot before. They’ll start out small, painful, making their presence known. They’ll grow and fester like the monsters they are before the inevitable break, the relief of the pressure on my skin, followed by the frustration of the drainage and smell that comes from some of them. I’ll cover myself in bandages, wear the baggy clothes I know will be the most comfortable for flares, and I’ll hope that the least amount possible will rear its ugly head. If a spot gets too majorly infected, a call to the doctor will be placed for antibiotics. Then I’ll deal with the scars and the tunnels they leave. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

This is just a glimpse into everyday life with Hidradenitis Suppurativa. Alternatively, acne inversa or HS for short, and something I’ve spent the majority of my life explaining to people who don’t really care and to doctors who should know about it by now. Nothing is worse than going to a check-in with a doctor who has your file and having to witness said doctor and their residents googling your condition, trusting websites that are hardly legitimate over my own knowledge about something I’ve lived with for more than half my life.

Come to think of it, this was a mild day for my HS, all things considered. Although, I’m sure with the stress of today, that will drastically change in the next 48 hours. It’s all a waiting game with HS. Waiting on the next place for the tracking to tunnel inside your body, the next medication or diet that won’t work, the next really bad flare that sends you to the hospital. The next time someone looks at you, sees the off-coloured scarring or open areas of HS that you can’t hide, and that face of disgust. The next “Are you contagious?” from someone who clearly doesn’t realize the comment can affect you so negatively—or even worse, they don’t care how badly the remark hurts you.

“Georgie?” Franny’s voice echoes through my apartment a few minutes after I’ve stepped into the scalding shower.

“In here,” I call back, tilting my head back to let the water soak into my dark hair better.

“How are you doing?”

Her voice rings out clear. I know she’s standing in the doorway of the bathroom, mentally deciding whether or not to put the toilet lid down to sit and talk to me. She ends up doing it anyway, that internal battle always ending the same, and I can hear her sigh outside the curtain. I pull the curtain back to flick water at her. She scoffs and wipes her face while I resume this glorious shower.