Rafting in Idiopathic Anaphylaxis River

The moment I got assigned to go white water rafting on Idiopathic Anaphylaxis River in the country called Adventures in Arduous Land, I knew that I was in for THE ride of my life. The state that this river is in is called Not-For-The-Faint-Hearted. And so I got strapped on with a helmet called Use-Your-Brains, a vest called I-Work-Like-The-Epi-Pen and a paddle called Use-Me-If-You-Want-To-Survive.

Round One

I thought they would usually start you with the basics which meant that this was the easiest level. But NO, you are thrown into the sea before they put you in kiddies pool. And I had to raft with seven other companions. And so we introduced ourselves. There was Miss Courage (whom I thought did not look like courage at all with her full-of-fear-fishball-eyes), Mr.Know-It-All, Miss Grumpy, Mrs.Cannot-Eat-Or-Smell-Any-Chemicals, Mr. Panic-Attacks, Mr. Righteous and Mrs. Angioedema. And the eighth person is yours truly. What a delightful combination our team was!

And so off we went, into that crazy river, with its twists and bends and rapids and steep drops. Many times I had thought that I was on the verge of meeting St. Peter at the Pearly Gates the moment the raft had a sudden drop. It was as though the river was alive and was bent on swallowing us all alive. But we survived somehow. Miraculously.

Round Two

So we patted each other on the back, congratulating ourselves on surviving the toughest round. And we thought that this second round would be easy-peasy. Piece of cake. Boy, were we wrong! At the first drop, I thought that Miss Fish Ball Eyes would have popped her eyeballs out and fallen into the river. Miss Grumpy was grumpy as usual, grumbling away and swallowing mouthfuls of river water. One would have thought that she would have learned her lesson from round one that is; one should keep one's mouth closed. But no! Miss Grumpy could never stop her mouth from grumbling. And Mr. Panic Attacks was well... himself. So you can imagine what a ride we had. The turns were tricky. And Mrs. Angioedema thought that her throat was going to swell shut and then, she started having problems breathing. It was actually panic attacks caused by Mr. Panic Attacks.

And then the turns became even trickier and the current grew stronger. I struggled to breathe as the ride was becoming very strenuous. Every breath I took ended up with water entering my nose. And I swallowed gulps of water. I felt like I was drowning in my own lungs. Fatigue set in. Exhaustion crept in. And then Mr. Righteous STOOD UP! Right in the middle of the rapids. Demanded that we kept our faith up. Insisted that we kept our spirits up. And demanded that we do it HIS way. And as he blabbed away, he fell off the raft and got sucked to God knows where. Lesson number one was to never ever stand up while rafting. So much for being righteous. Righteousness without common sense = a moronic idiot. So it was goodbye for him.

And then suddenly, it was calm. For it is when it's at its calmest, that you must be at your most vigilant stance. Things could just go haywire at the snap of the fingers. And it was then, that Mr.Know-It-All decided to remove his helmet and vest, and lay aside his oar to enjoy the 'serene surroundings'. Miss-Fish-Ball-Eyes told him off, but nooooooo, Mr.Know-It-All said that he knew what he was doing. I mean, he was Mr.Know-It-All right?! Unknown to us, the raft had been going in circles. We were caught in a whirlpool and we did not even know it. Talk about being savvy! Once we realized that we were caught in a whirlpool, we quickly used our oars and started paddling. Mr.Know-It-All started wearing back his helmet and vest in haste and in the process fell into the river and got sucked into the whirlpool. And there went our companion number two.

By the time we arrived back at base, we were soaking wet to the bones, exhausted beyond words and on the verge of puking out our guts and lungs. As I lay panting for breath on the ground, a pair of boots stood in front of my face. And then I heard his voice. 'What are you all?! A bunch of wussies?!! Now get off your asses before I make you all do 100 push-ups!!!' By the time we had gotten ourselves up, he had left. And we found out later that he was the new instructor. More like a boa constrictor than an instructor.

The next few weeks were never ending episodes of rafting, rafting and MORE rafting. Many of the women broke down. Many ended up in the infirmary. And I was seething with anger.

And then one day, I exploded.

It was during one of the days when we had arrived back at base during late evening, exhausted beyond words, that Mr. Slave Driver barked at us that we were to be up at 4am the next morning for ANOTHER round of rafting.

That night, with me being too tired to sleep, irritable beyond words and hearing my teammates cry themselves to sleep, I snapped. I got out of bed and promptly marched to Mr. Pompous-Arrogant-Bastard's quarters. I was an unstoppable locomotive. Steam was pouring out from my ears. Enough was enough!

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I barged into his room and erupted like an unstoppable volcano. Lava flowed out of my mouth. Words with venom that could kill a thousand men. I screamed like a mad-woman.

'Do you even know what anaphylaxis is? Or is your vocabulary so limited that it only consists of words such as push-ups, rafting and wussies?!'

'Do you know what it is like to have an anaphylaxis?! DAMN IT! I was never given an option to whether I wanted to live on this land and to raft in this river! I was blindfolded, thrown into this place, and left to survive on my own devices!'

'Do you even know what it is like to have Death staring at you in your eyes?! Seriously, what is your *#@!ing problem?!! Did your wife ditch you that you are such a pain-in-the-ass? What the bloody hell is wrong with you? You are such an ass****!!!'

I could feel my blood pressure sky rocket through the roofs of the skies. And as I was panting from my tirade, I suddenly realized that the room was in darkness. It was so dark that I could barely hear myself breathe. And then I panicked. He could just overcome me and rape me!

As if hearing my thoughts, his voice came from the farthest corner of the room and said, 'You allow yourself to be raped.'

WHAT??!!! I was LIVID! If I was a volcano just now, I was now an armed grenade. I could kill this man with my bare hands!

He then continued, 'You allow yourself to be violated when you allow yourself to wallow in defeat. You allow yourself to be raped when you do not fight back. You allow yourself to be raped when you say you cannot, it's impossible and then give up. YOU allow yourself to be raped when you give up your dreams. And you allow yourself to be violated when you do not thrive.'

I wanted to see this mad man spewing crap before I beat the crap out of him. And when I flicked on the lighter, I had the shock of the night! There he was lying in his bed, with a drip in his hand and a used Epi-Pen lying on his bedside table. I could not close my agape mouth. I was too shocked. He looked so weak and frail. I sat on the floor with a loud thud.

'I've had this since I was 16. I am now 54. How would I not know what you all are going through? I lived with it before you were even conceived.'

'The problem with you bunch of people is that even though you go through the motion of rafting and going on in life, you are NOT on the insides. Your insides are dead. You allow this so-called 'disease' to rob you of your life. You smile without smiling. You laugh without laughing. You breathe without breathing. And you live without being alive. How can you conquer the river when you refuse to conquere yourselves?'

And then I suddenly saw what meant. We were all hoboes. We were all emotionally bankrupt. Not because we could not afford to live a lavish life of happiness and contentment. But because we chose to live a life of destitute, desolate and wallow in self-pity. And then we proudly shout from rooftops that we had made it! We are alive but we are in fact like he had said, 'Living without living.'

I left without a word. I could not speak. I was broken. And then I slept. For weeks. And then it became months. The realization hit too close to home. You mean to say I rafted all these while without rafting? I was deader than dead? I did contemplate on leaving. But that would mean that I had given up. On myself. On life. Which would be equivalent to hanging myself.

And so I finally got up and out of bed. And I rafted. And this time I really rafted. I truly rafted while rafting. Of course the exhaustion was still there. I still had 101 questions that still had big, unresolved question marks. I still swallowed big gulps of river water. I still craved for stability which this river could never and would never give me. This river would forever be unpredictable. Nothing was constant. Nothing was the same. But this time, I was constant. In my life. In rafting. In living.

You should have seen Mr. Boa Constrictor's face when we rafted in one of the roughest waters. We did not come out unscathed. We did not come out without exhaustion. We did not come out without suffering beatings to our fighting spirits. We did not come out without wanting to puke out our guts and lungs from sheer fatigue. But we were victors. Why? Because we truly rafted while rafting in one of the world's toughest river, the Idiopathic Anaphylaxis River. And that wide smile on his face said it all.