I. A Hospital A Day, Makes the Doctor Go Away.

Less than two weeks ago, I spent five days in the hospital – all because I went to Urgent Care. And I am glad that I did, because no, I do not have any intention of hurting myself. And for a point of reference as to why I mention that, is because in the psychiatric disciplinary practice, you’re first asked whether or not you have any intention to do so. I wanted to live, and intuition signaled a sense that my organs were giving out, and my body was shutting down.

I chalked up my chest pain and shortness of breath, my chronic fatigue and constant numbness of fingers and toes, a constant iciness when faced with the slightest of breezes, to my anorexia. And it was, but it went beyond that. My parents swore that for the past few weeks, any photo of me was like seeing an apparition appear in the background, as if the grim reaper would make an unwelcomed visit a couple of months before seeing renditions of the character show up as a Trick-Or-Treater. They always volunteer to take me to a hospital, which I always adamantly refute. My mother would constantly diagnose me with dehydration. She was a year-round witch whose magic included out-predicting the meteorologists about weather and forewarning when things may transpire without said events actually materializing yet.

Upon walking into Urgent Care, I was immediately declared severely dehydrated and required an intravenous solution to help rehydrate me – that which is done solely in a hospital setting. At first, I denied being guilty as charged. While waiting for my father to pick me up, I started blinking through black dots, pixelated-like images of the world that was tangibly around me, until blinking did nothing but produce an opaquer black. I scrambled to a chair, saying internally to do so, to scramble, hunched over with clumsy footing. Upon sitting in the chair, no longer waiting to be called in to see the physician assistant for a non-existent doctor, I could almost taste scrambled eggs. I continue to deny myself the privilege of softly folding whisked eggs into a tie-dye of cloudy whites and sunny yolks, because it requires the additional caloric energy found in a cooking fat of some sort. And that would cause me to cut on the single sesame sea salt crisp that I like to pair with my eggs in the morning.

“Excuse me. Would you be able to get me a water bottle?” I asked the employee who was about to use the medication vending machine. There was a mini fridge with small water bottles for the taking about a foot away from me. Clearly, I could not make it that far. “I feel like I am going to pass out,” I said. I started quivering, trembling, and shaking. She said that she had to take my blood pressure. The computer output: 77. My blood pressure was far too low and continued to drop. She said an ambulance had to be called immediately. I signed the infamous AMA – Against Medical Advice – to be taken, instead opting to be taken to my select hospital a couple of miles away by my father who was already on his way.

Waiting to be seen in the Emergency Room, I started to black out again until fluids were administered and I started feeling awakened. I was now alert. Blood was drawn, not without a struggle to fill vials with a low supply of it.

I also am incredibly grateful for a divine order, hukam, as Sikhs regard it, that led to me meeting some of the most competent and qualified medical professionals for whom a regard for life is whole – body, mind, and soul. No eye was left unbattered, no brow furrowed, and there was no indication of Botox present. That is to say, when I winced and not having anyone be able to insert a much-needed intravenous line (I.V.) so that I could be rehydrated, have my electrolytes balanced, and receive two blood transfusions that I had signed off on, the head doctor, the nurses, the medical students, and the residents and attendings, all winced too.

I no longer slighted doctors of osteopathic medicine (D.O.s ) versus medical degree-holders (M.D.s) as being cop-outs, remedial, and unqualified. The head of the medical team was not only genuinely concerned, but had sincere eyes and sighs - he leaned against the wall opposite my stretcher bed: “Who is to say you leave here and then return because it happens again?” How would this get any better - steady, consistent, and amplified nutrition. The concept was more than feasible.

To no longer deprive myself- to afford to be able to eat without guilt - had already begun in the hospital. To no longer run - mentally panicking myself into doing so, through the pain, beyond the elevated and then decreased heart rate, and while holding myself from relieving my bowels. Physically - it meant that I could finally rest my body and restore my depleted adrenals. Mentally, however, I felt lazy and repulsive, with a strong need to be compulsive; I wanted to walk the ward as much as I could without provoking suspicions. I wanted to run despite my discomfort.

I wanted to go back to high intensity interval training. I wanted to at least purchase a standing desk, if not a walking pad like the girlies on Instagram’s wellness pages. I was researching other weighted hula hoops that I could somehow fold up and conceal so my father wouldn’t throw it out a third time. I was also figuring out whether I could purchase a weighted vest and wear it underneath sweatshirts. Could Bala Bangles work out? My dad suggested I take yoga. Within seconds I thought about taking Yoga Sculpt classes - they would never know that it was a calorie killer- that it was a bastardized version of our ancestral roots that is true yoga.

But the trauma of having blood infused into my own, a blood clot in my right hand from an I.V., my time spent in the ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders in a psychiatric hospital upstate years ago, having to supplement sodium, iron, thiamine - It all froze the aforementioned mental efforts at pursuing forbidden movement. Instead, I have thus far kept my promises; I haven’t skipped meals on weekends like I always did. I no longer run. No longer move at any given moment.

My body has changed immediately. The weight I was when I entered the hospital felt too high when others assured me it wasn't. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t healthy. And yet no one had unearthed what I already knew, that it wasn’t exactly sustainable.

So here I am. So here I stand, my knees not buckling, legs giving way beneath me. My face is pigmented once more. I can have blood drawn without the need for interventions that mapped out sonogram images of my blood vessels, as if I didn't lose my period for decades and was expecting. So here I am, nauseous at all times, experiencing night sweats, and migraines, and having every ounce gained on my body going straight to my abdomen to protect organs neglected, and causing my body to be in pain.

If only my co-workers knew how much pain I was and am in. If only others saw how my now tight clothing makes me want to recoil into myself. If only you knew.