<<Image description: in a scrapbook-style layout, two photos are taped to a beige background. The first photo is of Elisa’s left hand with an IV taped to it. The second is of a Kathmandu city scape. On two different strips of paper are written “Kathmandu, Nepal” and “November 12, 2016.” A graphic of prayer flags is in the upper left corner of the image. A red outline of a building is in the background, behind the photos and strips of paper.>>

“Is it supposed to do that?” I wondered sluggishly as I watched my blood climb up the IV line attached to my hand. As far as I knew fluids and meds were supposed to flow into me, not take my life force out.

Wearing an IV was a new experience for me. Actually, all of the previous day was new to me.

I was so tired after we walked home from a local church, (a small room with four walls, mud floor and no ceiling) where I quoted “Perks of Being a Wallflower” and proceeded to share about my acceptance of God’s love for me. I think the walk was long and I might have run out of water on the way back. I don’t remember. What I do remember is how my head ached as I laid it on the arm of the musty couch in our Kathmandu apartment upon our return.

Some time past and a plate with pasta and red meat sauce (I think) was placed on my lap, and my life changed forever.

I felt as if my brain was working in slow motion. I couldn’t lift my head fully and I couldn’t make my body follow my brain’s commands. I remember trying to tell my friends what was going on, but my tongue and larynx would not cooperate. I think I managed to eat the pasta and I must have communicated my distress somehow because the next thing I remember is Will* walking me to a taxi someone had wrangled from the main street.

The next segment of time exists in snippets- sitting on a bed in an international hospital’s ER, trying to navigate language barriers with nurses, Penny* reading me something from her phone, my hand being slapped none-too-gently to get a vein for the IV.

The longest stretch of time I remember is laying on a gurney that was too short for me in an ambulance bound for a facility that had an MRI machine. Not only was the stretcher too small, but I was also not strapped in whatsoever. They let Penny ride in the back with me like in the movies, and then this random woman was in there too. Apparently she was trying to hike to base camp (of mount-freaking-Everest I might add) and fainted or something from dehydration. Why she needed an MRI though, who knows? Anyway, I remember thinking, “this is not how ambulance rides are supposed to go.”

The MRI must have been traumatic because the ones I’ve had since have given me panic attacks. I remember changing into one of the provided gowns and taking out my earrings, but not the actual imaging. Nor do I remember the CT scan that preceded the MRI.

My next memory is of being wheeled into a room back at hospital.

And in retrospect it was probably one of the expensive rooms reserved for none-the-wiser tourists because it was spacious, private and had its own bathroom complete with a shower. There was even a couch that Penny could sleep on.

We both slept some. Only some. Anyone who’s ever spent the night in the hospital knows that sleep is scarce. The bed was hard, lights were blinking, sounds were ricochetting, and nurses were in and out. As much comfort as Penny was, she was not my parents or the adoring, doting boyfriend that Hollywood places in such scenes.

Despite the discomfort of the night, I did receive relief from the head pain and some of the other symptoms I was experiencing via IV meds. In the morning a doctor appeared in my room and told me I had a “post-traumatic migraine” probably from the concussion I received two weeks earlier. I was relieved I could understand him clearly as opposed to the village doctor I saw back in India.

He told me to rest, drink X liters of water a day, stay away from spicy foods (the irony of this statement was lost on me at the time), and take the meds he was prescribing.

I don’t recall what his parting words were- whether he reassured me I’d feel better soon or told me I’d be back volunteering in the women’s shelter the next week. What I do know is over five years of 24/7 head pain and countless neurological symptoms followed me home from that hospital.

The visual that haunts me after all this time is not the weirdly shiny wallpaper of my hospital room, or the doctor’s face, or even the inside of the ambulance, it’s my left hand with the IV taped to it. It’s like from the moment the IV went in my mind said, “wrong,” and it’s been shouting the wrongness of my situation ever since.

I wrote this mostly for me. I find healing in arranging my painful thoughts and memories into prose, but this next part is for you:

If you’ve ever had something in your life go horribly wrong, you know that no amount of wishful thinking, praying, positive reframing or therapy will make it right. Some things are just wrong. If you’re currently struggling with the wrongness of your situation, I encourage you to let it be wrong. Let it suck. Let it be sad. Let yourself grieve whatever it is and give yourself compassion for having to go through it.

And I will continue to do the same.

Love Always,

Elisa

Read about the eventful ride home for the hospital here.

*Name changed to preserve individual’s anonymity