health: abroad vs. home
When I came home from my abroad program, my parents kept commenting on how much weight I lost. I tried not to see this as a compliment but couldn’t help but feel more proud the baggier my pants felt.
They barely fed us over there. Well, they fed us the amount I’m sure they thought was appropriate but it was not enough. Three meals on weekdays, two on weekends, and the meals on weekends were five hours apart and lasted one hour each. If you didn’t like what was being served, you could make yourself a sandwich but the bread disappeared fast as most students hoarded sandwiches in the communal fridges in preparation for their inevitable hunger. The dining hall was closed and locked in between meal times so you couldn’t wander in for some cereal when you needed it. There was a snack bar called “Sophie’s” that was open almost every weeknight from 8:30-10 pm but they only took currency and I rarely had euros left over after traveling all weekend. There was no ATM or grocery store in town, the nearest was a 15-minute bus ride away (which also, of course, costs money for fare). I felt like my life only existed during meals. The rest of the time, I was thinking about how much longer until the next one. I bought snacks but conserved them like I was a goddamn soldier waiting for the next round of rations to arrive. A few weeks before we were due to arrive home, I took my medication without having eaten enough and threw up for hours, nothing coming out except watery bile. I was sick for days.
One night, the faculty lounge was left unlocked with the door open, so I snuck in and took a tub of non-dairy yogurt from the fridge (I am lactose intolerant and the dining hall had been out of lactose-free yogurt for over a week. A staff member must’ve been enjoying their fair share). I put the yogurt back in the fridge later that night out of guilt.
At home, I have a kitchen which harbors plenty of food that I can eat at any time of the day. The amount of joy I feel to open a cabinet and see a box of crackers, even if it’s been left open and the salty squares have gone stale, is unexpected and yet unmatched.
I started taking more medication around the halfway point of my time abroad. The higher dose made me dizzy but at least the skin on my hands started to heal. I saw a counselor while I was over there who told me he believed America’s pharmaceutical industry was built to keep people sick; prescribing medications left and right without looking for other forms of treatment, handing over more and more pills to fix problems that perhaps weren’t forever problems. Of course, medication works for people, there’s no doubt about that. But the conversation we had stuck with me.
“I don’t think you need therapy. Or medication,” he told me. “You’re just a normal human being dealing with normal emotions. Everyone feels this. It’s not something you need a pill to cope with.” I’m still not sure if he is right about this but I felt changed afterwards. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with me. Eh, that’s probably not it.
The color has come back to my face. I feel clean and rested. I still get dizzy often but I’m crediting that to yet another change in the dose of my medication: it’s lower. I need to visit a physical therapist for a kink in my neck that won’t go away and what I think is a pinched nerve in my hip. I need to go to the dermatologist to fix the breakouts on my nose and chin, a dentist to bleach off the coffee and wine stains from my teeth, my gynecologist for, well, other things, and make a new appointment with my therapist. I might not always need therapy, but in times of transition (which I’m beginning to realize is all of the time), I think it’s good to stick with it. But I’m happy now cause my tummy is full.
I wrote this a week ago. I was feeling better, then I got sick. I was visiting my sister at her school before she graduates and my body got in the way. I will spare you the gorey details but trust me, it wasn’t pretty. I haven’t left the house in days and I feel like the bottom of a murky lake personified. I have a hard time with my body. I love it for the purpose it serves but it often fails on me. I could take all the medicine I need and eat every leafy green but still get dizzy on a whim. We all know that health isn’t linear. This is just a reminder of that. Bodies will be bodies. They will glitch. As much as it irritates me, there is one phrase that’s comforting: Pain is just weakness leaving the body.
