Dancing With Ivy During my last weeks of high school, I came down with severe tonsillitis. It was a Sunday when I first started to feel it setting in, a feeling that I've known frequently my entire life. By Tuesday I couldn't swallow, not even soup or water, and by Thursday I hadn't eaten for days. The pain was so overwhelming that I couldn't sleep at all and spent all my time at home alone, sitting in a hot bath watching the television using a series of mirrors I set up. When my mother came home from her trip on Friday, she took me to the hospital where I stayed for days on an intravenous.

Over the course of the weekend, my family came to visit me a few times. They brought me books and magazines and homework, though mostly I slept off half a week's exhaustion, trying to get healthy for my graduation ceremony the following weekend. My mother joked that if I didn't get better in time, I'd have to take Ivy as my escort. Only one of my friends - Fiona, my actual escort - came to visit over those two days.

I was released Monday afternoon and, coincidentally, only a few minutes before two of my friends came to visit me during a spare they both had. Since I was dressing and getting ready to leave, they didn't stay long, and when I called my mother to pick me up, I couldn't stand being in the hospital any longer and walked up the street where she would be driving by.

I lost more than ten pounds that week and my tux hung off me looser than it should have.

For a time, I was upset that I didn't get more visitors that weekend. Then I realized that I ought to be thankful for the people that did come by to see me. And I was, and I am.  ¶ 7:56 AM