Anonymous

Editor’s Note: This piece tied for first place in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

“That seems like a dumb way to die.”

“Why would anyone choose to do that to themselves?”

I hear my medical-school classmates pose these questions as we learn about how an acetaminophen overdose can cause painful, fatal damage to the liver. How each metabolite can tear apart a liver cell. How it takes hours or even days for the full extent of the overdose to be felt.

I sit silently, uninterested in engaging in the conversation. My mind wanders back to the cold February night nearly fifteen years ago that brought me to my suburban emergency room.