It was like deja vu--I woke up to the same nurses poking at my calves and my toes, the same abrupt light switch that pissed me off the day before, and the same food lady that left me hanging by leaving my food way out of arm’s reach for me again. It was amazing, I was living in a purgatory where not only I was out of control of my own body, but I also couldn’t understand the people that did have control of it. I would 14/10 not recommend breaking yourself in a foreign country.

 

I kept forgetting my parents were coming. I kept forgetting where I was and why. I just started to get used to being a zoo exhibit for many; everyone was fascinated by touching me to make sure that I was still feeling my legs. I met for the first time who I later deemed to be my favorite nurse, Darko. He came in in the same navy scrub suit that every other nurse wore, with his bald head, but stand out dark eyebrows. He spoke English the best out of everyone I had met so far, and he was pretty much the only person in that God forsaken hospital that made it seem like he cared not only about getting the job done, but me as a person.

 

He asked about what happened and where I was, etc. I told him everything and his first reaction was, "Oh Nikol why you do that?" as if I had tried to get myself into this situation. He told me that he used to work at an amusement park in Utah. What I found was that everyone’s dream in Macedonia was to go to America to make a better life for themselves. The funny thing is my dream had always been the opposite, to come to Macedonia and experience my ancestral roots far away from America. Darko eventually decided to come back to Macedonia to be a nurse, but he had his chance for his big Utah break, my guess as to why his English was so good. Darko was not only the only male nurse on my floor, but also the only nurse I really allowed to change my diaper. I was so embarrassed by wearing that damn thing that I allowed myself to be embarrassed to have it changed too. I hated being out of control, but for some reason, Darko was so good at distracting me while he was doing it that I didn’t even realize it was over when he was done.

 

My dad was supposed to land around 2pm and come straight to the hospital. I was so anxious to have him there that I could barely eat, not that I was really eating anyways. My Teta came back that day to sit with me. We didn’t have much to talk about at that point, so we arranged for my dad to be picked up by someone at the airport.

 

I must’ve fell asleep because the next thing I knew I heard the door opening, and I immediately teared up a little because my dad was walking through it, not an annoying nurse coming to poke the hell out of me. I wanted nothing more than to jump out of bed and hug him, but that really wasn’t much of an option, so just like everyone else, he grabbed my hand and hung onto it tight. We did a little catching up, along the lines of what exactly happened, what caused it, and what would happen next. He told me that my mom had already been in contact with the doctor here that would be doing my surgery, and that he would be coming by my room to talk to us soon.

 

That was about all the catching up we could do before the doctor walked in. “I am Dr. Jordan Savevski,” he said. I swear to you out of all of the things this man could have said after his name to introduce himself, he says “I study in America once. I go to Ohio State University.” Oh for the love of God, I thought. He almost rolled on the floor laughing when I told him I went to U of M. I was not smiling. He looked at me and told me what my spine looked like, and what he was going to do about it. My dad then asked him to walk through the surgery for me. Two bars, six screws, one cage, he said. Gross. I couldn’t bare to think about them splitting my back open and putting that in there. There would be lots of blood, guts, and grossness, too much for me to even think about. My dad then asked him the motherload of all questions, “Could you explain to her the potential complications, tingly feet maybe?” What he was underlyingly telling the doctor to do was to tell me that there was a possibility that I could wake up still, paralyzed below my waist.

 

“No complications. I do this for 40 years. No complications, it will be perfect. Surgery perfect,” he said. My dad and I looked at each other, as if he was already silently telling me that he would go through the complications with me later, like I didn’t already know. My dad then moved onto the next topic, asking if the fusion of the vertebrae would go one bone above and one bone below the T12 fracture. This is when the doctor said the few words you should absolutely never say to or about a woman. “Well, she is...big girl, so we are going two above and two below fracture.” Remember how I said I was emotive?  I didn’t even try to hide this one. I looked at him appalled, as he reassured that surgery would go great and that he’d see us the next morning at 8am. 

 

The second the door clicked in the frame, I looked at my dad and said, “Did he just call me fat?” My dad laughed a little as he made the face of that little emoji that has his teeth all out as if he’s saying “oh shit.” “Uhhhhh...yes. I thought maybe you’d missed that,” he said. How could I? I brushed it off and then felt okay enough to move on past this subject and to when my mom was coming. I wondered if I would have to comfort her similarly to all of the other visitors I’d had so far. In the meantime, my dad figured out the paperwork and demanded English versions of everything before they were allowed to put another finger on me. He must’ve been in a better headspace than I was because I didn’t even think to do that, just like I never thought to do that for the waiver at the high ropes course. Some bad karma is what that is called.

 

I have no clue what I did the rest of the day, but I do remember my mom coming in right as I started to get worried about the surgery. I hadn’t felt worried about it before that moment, but I had just enough time to begin processing what was really happening and the events that had occurred in the last 48 hours. My mom surprisingly didn’t cry right away, but instead insisted on them making her a bed on the side of the room, as she knew that although I didn’t say it aloud, I wanted her to be there. She held my hand similarly to everyone else, and kissed my forehead gently.

 

Another thing I was irrationally worried about was how my parents were going to get along during this very serious situation. I knew that in the effort of making sure their daughter was fine, I wasn’t going to have to really worry about that, but I did have to divert my anxiousness about my back toward something else after all.

 

I posted on Facebook soon after, giving everyone an update so that I could stop responding to individual texts of “what happened?” or “are you okay??” I basically wanted everyone to know that something had happened but not bad enough to not be able to post on Facebook about it (millennial, am I right?) I was shocked by the outpouring of people that commented, loved, liked, reacted, or whatever you do on there to my post. I had friends or acquaintances from years ago that I had lost touch with comment things such as “praying for you” or “sending love.” I was also surprised to see my messenger inbox fill with more personal messages, asking what they could do, how they could help, and so on. It’s amazing how social media can turn feeling very alone and scared to boosting your confidence through nonverbal interaction.

 

My dad left soon after to go try to rid of his jet lag in his hotel and get something to eat. I felt bad that all of these people visiting me kept forgetting to function as normal humans just because I wasn’t. 

 

I finally complied with signing all of the papers in English, signing my life away to the operation room. My mom brought a whole kit of holy water and holy oil from our church in America, so she doused me in it right after for luck. She told me that our church, along with her friends' churches and our priest's friends' churches, were having prayer groups led for me to have a safe and successful surgery (literally) around the world. Though I don't do much praying myself, I laid awake all night thinking about the power of that, while also abusing the nurse button as my mom slept five feet away from me.