I have spent 350 nights at Mt. Sinai Hospital and in the beginning, that hospital was a safe place for me. Before my parents and I realized the severity of my situation, going to a hospital close by was easier but once it became clear that I did have a complicated disease and I was transferred to Mt. Sinai, I began to only be able to trust the doctors and nurses who worked there. I am a smart girl and did learn that the local hospitals were not equipped to handle situations that were as complex as mine, thus making it so Mt. Sinai Hospital was really the only place I was able to go and receive actual care.

But as the years went on, Mt. Sinai became something else. On one hand, it was the place that had the only people that I trusted to lay a hand on me, but on the other hand, inside those doors were the people, colors, smells and noises that sent my heart into my stomach.

How could this be the only place where I would willingly allow them to slice me open and trust them to take care of me afterwards but also have it be the establishment that I refer to as the torture chamber? I understand the psychological complexities of this… I do. It just has always baffled me how I can have such a strange relationship with this hospital. The sound of it makes me cringe, yet I would truly never voluntarily admit myself anyplace else.