Every one having sex is over eighteen. Legal procedures do not resemble anything in the known universe. Medical references are very sketchy, find a medical professional for your health, do not rely on fiction. This story is completely made up. All characters having sex are eighteen or older. A lot of dark humor, if you are a sensitive soul you might want to skip this one.
GLASS STOMACH
I have always had a glass stomach. When I was a child, nausea vomiting and diarrhea were common problems for me. I became a picky eater, not wanting to eat anything that I had a problem with in the past. My parents were firm supporters of modern medicine and dragged me into the doctor every time I puked. Doctors did what they do and ordered tests and treatments. I sometimes wish my folks had said, "Let's wait a bit and see if it's a one-time thing or if there is a real problem."
The most common unwanted side effect of all medication is nausea. My body quickly learned to get queasy on sighting a pill. After a while they were coming back up faster than they went down. The resourceful doctors were soon treating me with topical patches and rectal suppositories. If someone had called a truce then I might have had a normal life.
Unfortunately, everyone was pretty proactive. I was introduced to a lot of needles at a young age. Subcutaneous (sub-Q) needles were nothing, I really did not care one way or the other. Intramuscular (IM) shots hurt. They also leave lumps under your skin. Nurses have only got a few favorite spots for shots, if all you are getting is a yearly flu shot, it is no big deal. If you are getting two or three shots a week, the bruising won't even go down before you need another one.
Needless to say, the medical professionals soon brought out their big guns and I started getting intravenous (IV) infusions. I soon had more track lines than a heroin addict. It was pretty ordinary for me to have bruises over my veins from blown IVs. The nurses knew I did not like the needles they stuck in me and tended to ignore me when I complained they hurt. As a result, I would end up with an arm blown up like a sausage when it infiltrated.
My mom's friends wanted to know if I had cancer.
There are only so many spots nurses like to put IVs and soon they were all scarred over. It got to the point where only a very skilled nurse with an ultrasound could start an IV on me. Of course I was only a kid, so they did not listen to me and took it as a personal challenge to get that IV. By this time, they had to tie me down to use me as a pin cushion. They would promise it would not hurt, and then the ordeal of pain would begin. Around this time the sight of somebody dressed like a doctor or a nurse was enough to turn my stomach. Hospital and clinic smells got to me too.
I was a slow learner. It became obvious that telling my folks I threw up resulted in pain. I started hiding my daily tummy problems. I was a kid though so my folks figured it out pretty quick and reported it to my doctors. My medical doctors were incredibly relieved. Instead of being a medical mystery who had the gall not to respond to their treatment, I was an anorexic or bulimic. These are potentially fatal diseases, but they were not MEDICAL issues, they were problems for the head shrinkers.
Eventually I got someone on my case who did not get excited if I puked and did not rush to fix it. Instead, we spent time figuring out what I could eat, what my triggers were. We found new food I could eat. I got a little more relaxed about food. Kept a food diary, and gained control over my diet. I ended up with bad veins, a poor body image and a hate for the medical profession. Never did find out the root cause.
A healthy lifestyle and a careful diet became my approach to the world and gave me control of my glass stomach. A lot of people found my mahogany-colored mane of hair and brilliant emerald green eyes very attractive. My thin athletic body and small B cup breasts had a more of a niche following than my well-endowed classmates in high school. It did not bother me though because I really was not interested in boys or sex back then. Not being stuck in a hospital room or confined to a mental ward gave me a chance to experience the world and I was not going to waste my time waiting for a boy to call.
My folks lived in a very large beach city. We actually lived in a huge place on the beach. When I graduated from high school I had a choice of two colleges: State, which was centered on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine) classes and the like. Unnie was a religion-based college that had much more of a liberal arts approach. I set my site on State College because it was an easy commute from home. University of St. Jude was a nightmare to get to from where we lived. Ironically, I ended up living on campus while I was in college.
There were also junior colleges but no daughter of Frank and Crystal Lin would go to a crappy little junior college. For all their high-sounding words, Freshman Amanda Lin did not make a big splash on campus. I did manage to pledge to Delta Delta house. It is a small sorority often confused with the Try Deltas or the black Deltas (Delta Sigma Theta, DST). We are the Double Ds although there is a faction pushing for Grand Tetons as a nick name (the two triangles look like twin peaks). (The asshole who called us the 'Doable Ds' can go to hell.)
I am really good in math but I also have a good ear and can read music. For a while I thought about a Fine Arts degree in music but slowly realized playing a piano or a guitar was a lot of fun for me, however I could not imagine putting in the effort to master it. My second year I changed my focus to business and finance. That's how I met the billionaire Aaron Block.
My favorite teacher was a friend of his and had invited him to come speak on campus. Aaron had some time to kill before his speech so my professor arranged an informal sit down with a few of my classmates. I just tagged along to meet the celebrity. There were three STEM guys and two art majors who snuck in as well.
It was casual with a lot of lively fun talk. He had just been voted the world's most eligible bachelor in a magazine poll and a couple of guys were busting his chops for that. He was probably ten years older than me so I was surprised to discover that I found him attractive, instead of thinking of him as a father type figure.
He was a classic handsome man with sandy blond hair, baby blue eyes and a smile that made hearts flutter. He towered over most other men and was very well built from carrying around all that money. He was really arrogant, but on him it looked good.
He chatted with the STEM guys about some new tech coming down the pipes. Gave one of the arts majors a stock tip when she asked, and gave the impression he was as interested in us as we were in him. After an hour or so of bull shitting with us he had to go do his speech. I had some free time so I went to my bank and pulled the money out of my education fund and put it all on his stock tip. I did watch the recording of his speech later on line.
Not long after I went to argue with professor Bond about a test question he had marked as wrong. Before I reached college, I thought test results were final, they are actually open to debate. I had an argument for my answer and a small group of people who came with me as allies. The billionaire and his PA were hanging out with my teacher and they listened with amusement as we argued our case. In the end our arguments worked and we won the point. My friends left, but I stopped and thanked Aaron for his stock tip. (He had told us to call him Aaron at that informal gathering.)