Natalie walks the halls of the local hospital meeting and talking to other patients who are sick there. However, Natalie isn’t sick but her twin sister Natasha is. Natalie shares the story of her and her sister growing up without their father for Natalie she accepted the reality and was about to move on but Natasha took his absence very personal. She wanted to have a relationship with her father or at least understand why he had chosen to not love her and be a part of her life. This obsession turns into depression which then manifests itself into bulimia. She stopped living her life, stopped communicating with her family, Natalie and eventually herself. She started to exercise endless hours a day and Natalie followed a foul smell to the area hidden in Natasha’s closet where she would purge herself. Natalie and her mother try to get her help but after Natasha has a random meeting with her father that didn’t go well she fell down a spiral that landed her in the ICU. As Natalie awaits to see if her sister will live or die she continues to walk the halls. Listening to the stories of others as she tries to figure out her story is going to end. Wondering if the biggest piece of her is about to leave her life forever.
PR- Halls of Life
Walking around the halls of this hospital really freak me out. My mom just told me that I needed to go for a walk. She tells me all the time how emotional I am, how I make other people nervous, sometimes she worries about my mental health. What she really wants to say is, “I don’t want you to end up like your sister.” My name is Natalie and I have a twin sister Natasha. Right now, Natasha is in the ICU in room three which is where I just came from, and she has been put in a medically induced coma. She’s really sick. The moment you tell someone that your sibling is in the hospital and that they are really sick the next feasible question is what are they sick from. That’s the good thing about going on these walks I meet a lot of patients here who are walking the halls with their IV bags and with their family members and a lot of the time when you are in the hospital what you want is to talk to someone. That may be why I don’t want to walk these halls, or rather why my mother tells me I should. I’ve met people who are going through chemo to fight cancer, the guy next to my sisters’ room is suffering from AIDS, there is a woman down on the first floor who just gave birth to premature twins. Sometimes I want to lie to people about why my sister is always in the hospital. But my mother said that is a terrible way to deal with my emotions. So here you go, my sister Natasha is bulimic in a whole other way, the reason she is presently in the hospital is because right now she weighs 68 pounds. The doctor said her bones alone where I almost half that. So that’s why I’m here, walking the halls.