The next week after leaving the ICU was a mixture of emotion and activities.

 

On July 6th, I rolled over for the first time in my bed. I wanted to sleep so badly on my stomach for some relief but also wanted to be a little bit of a show off, so I just made the full circle while I was at it. I was back to being one tough guy.

 

On July 7th, I got my first post-surgical x-ray, where Darko (thank Jesus) rolled me down and held me up as they took all these pictures showing my new set of hardware on the inside. I wondered if the metal would make me heavier, then I’d really be a big girl, hey doc? Darko admired my nails and asked me when I left to get a manicure. I told him that I had painted them myself and laughed because it was about three weeks before, and they looked awful.

 

That day I also sat up for the first time. Still showing off, I had my mom take my picture flexing my muscles (after I sat there for about 10 minutes trying to rid of the week of laying down dizziness I had accumulated). I also got fitted for what I didn’t know would be my new best friend, a big, hard, white, plastic, skeletal looking brace. It really looked like a skeleton in the back, with holes popped right where my ribs were. The front had two straps to hold me in, right above my chest and right below. I had people tell me that that must feel like getting a hug at all times, but I can with every ounce of my being assure you it does not.

 

On July 8th, my dad left the country. I was pretty sad seeing as the doctor had recently told us that I had to stay another month in Macedonia to heal before I was fit to fly back. And, they gave me a sleeping pill the day before that was supposed to help me get through the night, but they gave it to me again at 8am so I essentially slept the entire last day he was there. I was devastated. I wished I could have both parents stay with me during my healing process, but the amount of time he already had to take off of work and our family reunion back home was too much. Luckily, my mom was going to stay with me the next month while I healed and tried to gain some strength back. As my dad left, he texted me that I had been given the challenge of a lifetime, one that I did not want, but that I was given. He told me that he loved me and that I was his hero, something that will stay with me forever.

 

On July 9th, Dillon and my roommate came to the hospital to visit. My mom said it was the first time I had genuinely smiled in days. They stayed about two hours past the visiting limit, but the nurses were scared to come check on me mostly because of the language barrier and my apparent “panicking,” so they didn’t notice. I laughed the whole time, which was some of the best medicine.

 

On July 10th, my roommate came back along with my host sister, another dose of happiness I needed. They held my hand and talked about what was going on outside of the hospital. They updated me on our host bird, Koki, who would wake us up every morning by screeching so loud we thought he might die. I missed him. They were really good at cheering me up. 

 

On July 11th, Dillon along with another Birthright participant came to visit straight from work. They sat next to me and pulled up all of their old ugly Facebook pictures, and believe me they were good. Man, I was lucky to have people who knew how to boost my mood. This day was also the first day I stood up! I had physical therapists (two plus my mom, also a physical therapist) who got me up and on my feet and hanging onto a walker. They held me as I walked all the way down the hallway. I looked ridiculous in my stockings to protect my legs from blood clots, but I was the most thrilled I had been in awhile. The pictures my mom took that day were the new record for how many likes my mom got on Facebook.

 

On July 12th, I woke up having made it through the WHOLE night. That was finally the day I was granted my discharge from room 2203. They pulled out my 9th IV in the last 13 days and sat me up and in a very strange looking wheelchair, then shoved me in the shower with all of my clothes on. I hadn’t been actually bathed in 12 days, which is sheerly disgusting, so I was excited to be getting some soap on my skin. This lady (her name was Bessi) must not have known very much English, because she didn’t talk much while she bathed me. Bessi just giggled, nonstop. Eventually, when they brought me back into the room and all of my stuff was packed up, I was lifted onto a stretcher that would take me onto the ambulance that would eventually bring me to a new apartment, an airbnb that would now be our new home for the next few weeks. I had quite the send off as they rolled me down the hall and out of that floor for the first time in awhile. All of my nurses (even the ones I was convinced hated me) waved at me as I was rolling down the long hallway to the elevator. Bessi kissed my forehead as she said, "This first time I see you smile Nikol." Darko kissed my hand, and I finally felt like I was a real human again.

 

We were on our way in the ambulance with all of my crap from my old apartment (a few suitcases and a backpack) when my mom told me that her and my Teta when talking to the landlord, Nikola, about this apartment told him that I had just broke my leg so that’s why we needed air conditioning and an elevator. I erupted in laughter. “He’s going to be waiting there for me to walk in on some crutches, but instead is going to get all 5’4 broken spine of me?” I thought it was hilarious. Safe to say Nikola did not.

 

On July 13th, it was the official closing ceremony of Birthright Macedonia, the program I had missed the last two weeks of. I hadn’t seen mostly all of the participants since I was whisked away in an ambulance in Pehčevo, so they all came to visit me after my mother attempted to carry me into and bathe me in our unusually high bathtub. I put on a dress because I wanted to appear normal, even with my brace that I was already embarrassed to be in. They came and hugged me as I sat on the couch, walker next to me. “The fall didn’t look that bad,” a few of them said. Wow, great. Well it was, I thought. I did enjoy their company, as well as the chocolate and flowers they brought me.

 

On July 14th, my real friends, my roommate and her boyfriend and then Dillon later on came back to visit me. I enjoyed being able to wear big ugly clothes and lay down the entire time they were there, but was sad because they were going back to all of our families’ hometown of Bitola, where the three of us adventurously took a three hour bus ride to the week before. I wished more than anything I could go with them.

 

On July 15th, I had a bad, bad day. I was told I wasn’t going to be able to dance, and frankly, I was depressed. I was entering my senior year of college and not being able to escape through something I’ve been doing for almost 20 years was devastating. I was told I’d be able to dance again one day, but I didn’t care. I cried for the first time since being in the apartment because I was genuinely, well, sad. “Why did this happen to me?” I remember asking my mom through tears, who was crying almost as ugly as I was. I begged my mom to let me leave the apartment, I wanted to walk on the street even though I knew I didn’t have enough strength for that. Hesitantly, she let me leave, and I had a genuine smile on my face as I made her take a video of me slowly hobbling out of the door, singing “coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing JUST FINE,” the famous Mr. Brightside lyrics. Didn’t I ever tell you I was extremely dramatic?

 

The next three weeks were much of the same exact routine with my mom and I in the same apartment. Wake up. Eat two hard boiled eggs, one piece of toast with honey on it, and a either peach or apricot. Mom gives me a Heperin (blood thinner) shot (no she was not qualified to do this whatsoever). Lay down for a few hours. Open the window to look at Mt. Vodno, which I once was able to make it to the top of. Nap. Watch a few hours of Netflix. One of us would read a chapter of our book aloud together. Mom would go walk to the market to get food (but I think to take a break from me for awhile). At some point eat lunch. Then eat dinner. Watch more Netflix. Sometimes write, but mostly spend all day on social media waiting for someone in America to wake up (six hour time difference). Take medicine. Go to bathroom. Bathe every few days. Bed. Don’t sleep. When sleep occurs, have some tragic nightmare and wake up early sweating through my clothes.

 

This was where my elaborately dark dreams and nightmares really bloomed. I don’t remember most of them, but I do remember telling Dillon them every morning. The only one I wrote down was where I was being rolled into an operation room directly after spine surgery, Dillon on the stretcher beside me, both of us about to have open heart surgery in the same room. Terrifying.

 

In the next three weeks, I really did gain more strength. I was able to walk down to first the corner, then the church across the street, then down two blocks to a store! Anyone that walked with me (my Teta, my mom, Dillon) all had to hold my brace as if I was going to tragically fall all the way down the pavement even though I was literally using a walker to prevent me from doing so.

 

On July 21st, my sister eventually made it to the homeland to help take care of me, but to be honest, I was so sick the whole time that I barely remember her coming. The one thing I do remember is forcing her to "make use of herself" and rub lotion all over my legs that I couldn’t reach. And yes, as I’m sure you could guess, I did not shave at all because of my blood thinner, so that kind of sucked for her. She came with me to my check up at the doctor, where I took another X-Ray, this time walking to the machine myself. Dr. Savevski said I was doing just fine after smacking my shoulders a few times, and I was finally fit to fly. She got to see where I lived for 13 days in the hospital. She left on July 27th.

 

Remember when I said I was so sad that I couldn’t finish Birthright and I thought I’d have to leave Macedonia much earlier? Well eventually, with the lack of things I was allowed to do in that country, I couldn’t imagine anything more joyous than leaving. I begged my mom to continue to get the travel insurance to help us get out of there, almost every waking hour I could.

 

On August 1st, we FINALLY were informed we’d be able to leave the next day. My host sister visited for the last time, I hugged her goodbye and thanked her for housing me for the week that she did. I would miss her. We met my Teta in the centre, about a half mile from where the apartment was, a huge accomplishment for me walking wise. We ate ice cream, and I realized I was going to miss her a lot too. We packed our bags, took my medicine for the last time in that apartment, and got all of our belongings together. I was feeling a little sad, because after spending so much time in it, I was kind of going to miss it.

 

On August 2nd, I left the homeland. I was supposed to be buckled into the ambulance that took me away. I was supposed to have a long flight where I could lay down right away. I was supposed to have a medical escort. I was also supposed to have just completed the trip of a lifetime. But I didn’t. I had my mom, a backpack that I couldn’t carry, a walker that didn’t fit down the aisles of the airplane, and a short flight, a long flight, and a short flight home. In the travel from Skopje, Macedonia, to Istanbul, Turkey, I almost passed out so many times my mom thought we might not make it there. In the Istanbul airport, I was wheeled around by a Chinese man who spoke fluent Turkish, and was uncomfortably rubbed by a lot of airport security because I couldn’t go through the metal detectors. I was pushed out of the way by a snooty American as I was walking with my walker toward the plane. Every time I went to the bathroom, the Turkish flight attendant had to carry me there. I threw up so much on the flight from Istanbul to Chicago that they had to take me to medical services when I got to O’Hare International. I almost didn’t make it home. But I did. An ambulance took me there and my dog cried in my lap as I was bent over toilet, still violently ill even in Detroit. My mom physically kissed the ground when we got home, and I’ve never been happier to be in a place in my entire life.