There were early nose-'n'-throat flare-ups, loud belching that defied my delicate appearance, pesky and persistent migraines, swollen tonsils that fluttered a plea for removal whenever I said “Ahhh,” a deviated septum blamed for my mouth hanging open to breathe, and elusive allergies that forever deprived me of sustenance from the four basic food groups. As we got closer to pinning down my mysterious illness in the cardiology department, Mom moved into micromanaged health care with the logistical vigor of a drill sergeant.

“Look, dammit, this kid is sick, all right? Just look at her. And so help me God, if she dies on me because you can't find anything wrong with her, I'll sue you for every cent you got.” Mom's face was long, her eyes diving into slits, and she had that little white blob of thick spit that always played on her bottom lip whenever she got upset. Her voice trailed after any doctor who said no more tests could be done, stalked him down the corridor, sliced through the silence of the hallway.

“Jeesus Christ,” she hissed, returning to the examining room, “I cannot believe that incompetent son of a bitch.”

“Don't worry, Mom. It's okay. We'll go find another one.”

This is how I offered reassurance, by telling her we'd just keep going.

“Look, I'm trying to help you with this, sacrificing my life to find out what the hell is wrong with you. So stop fucking it up when we get in here by acting all normal. Show them how sick you are and let's get to the bottom of this, okay?”

“Okay.”

We lived together day in and day out - me, Mom, Dad, little Danny, and then later, the foster kids - but Dad never knew I was getting my chest shaved. He was summoned by Mom with a set of “decent clothes” and the boxed white loafers only when a demonstration of fatherly support was paramount at a hospital. Otherwise, he was left to his back-to-back reruns of M*A*S*H, his red-stained pistachio fingers and mounds of empty nut carcasses piled high on his belly.

We lived in a double-wide trailer then, stuck on the dead end of a dirt road in a backwoods patch of Ohio; a wild, woolly green, lushed-out part of the country with roller coaster hills that held their breath in a Deliverance kind of way. I swear you could almost hear the banjos folded faintly into the breeze.

My parents had hauled their black velvet painting of Jesus crucified, with the 3-D blood from the crown of thorns blobbing down the side of his head, all the way from Arizona and then through the six other places we'd lived until we settled in the holler of Burns Road.

Our living room was outfitted with an early imitation-wagon-wheel velour sofa set, and Jesus hung against the burnt-orange velvet wallpaper, which had been pasted over wood paneling, so that the grooves showed through as darkened, hollow stripes. Sticky shag (as if someone had vacuumed up honey) swayed like undulating seaweed across the floor. Miniature concrete farm animals dotted our yard in pairs and groups - white baby chicks, mini cows with pink udders, roosters a-courting hens, a donkey in a sombrero - and when we were in town for my doctors' appointments, Mom always kept an eagle eye out for additions to her barnyard collection.

I remember my dad then, manateelike; big, soft, scrubbed clean as if he'd just been run through a car wash on a La-Z-Boy gurney. Naked white skin stretched taut over an enormous belly, the pallor of sick clay. No hearing. No sight. No opinion. The dark living room of our trailer held nothing - except sporadic uproarious laughter to the endless hijinks of Hawkeye and Hunnicut.

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Excerpted from Sickened by Julie Gregory Copyright © 2003 by Julie Gregory. Excerpted by permission of Bantam, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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About the Author

Julie Gregory grew up in southern Ohio. She is now an expert writer and spokesperson on Munchausen by proxy and an advocate in MBP cases. A graduate student in psychiatry at Sheffield University, England, she currently lives in the United States. Visit the author's website. More