Rushed to the RedCross (sick part II)

After the 23 hour long hike up the Acatenango volcano, Erwin and I went down to the halfway point, then hiked up the volcano of Fuego, back down to the halfway point, up again to the camp at Acatenango, and then all the way down to the village. The four of us were exhausted, all we wanted to do was get home and rest.

We hit some traffic on the way back. We were all torn between wanting to sleep and needing to eat. Hunger and exhaustion blended into one feeling. I had even more mixed feelings, because at that point I started to feel extremely nauseous.

The slow movement of the car and the constant braking in traffic made me violently sick, and suddenly I felt the urge to vomit. I told the group I urgently needed a bathroom because I was getting sick. There was a McDonald’s next to us, so our friend who was driving pulled in, and I ran inside.

I knelt in front of the toilet, then suddenly had to sit down. I didn’t know if I was going to vomit or have diarrhea. I sat down and had extreme diarrhea. All I wanted to do was lie down on the bathroom floor and stay there forever.

Several minutes later, I came out of the bathroom ready to continue home. I made it without any emergency stops, and the moment I arrived I was reminded by Erwin’s mother that I had a flight to Bogotá, Colombia the next morning.

I was about to continue my trip through Spanish-speaking countries, and Colombia would be my third stop. I still felt very sick the next morning and couldn’t eat a thing.

The last moments of my time in Guatemala were spent in the bathroom, just trying to feel better. Erwin drove me to the airport and asked one last time if I was okay to board the flight.

Inside, I felt horrible and desperately wanted to say no. All I wanted to do was lie down for hours, maybe days. But I needed to catch that expensive flight.

I had barely had time to process how underfed and dehydrated I had been for the past 40 hours. I had hardly eaten or drunk anything, on top of extreme physical stress and pain.

I walked onto the plane, straight to my seat, and the next thing I remember was a flight attendant waking me up for landing. My body felt like a broken machine. Every step off that aircraft hurt. Going down the stairs felt like climbing down the mountain again, with sharp pain stabbing through my knees.

At baggage claim, I barely had the energy to lift my luggage and had to ask someone for help. My body refused even the most basic functions. The diarrhea was relentless; I spent 40 minutes collapsed on an airport toilet, leaving only when someone banged on the door.

It took me almost two hours just to get out of the airport. I dragged myself step by step through the exit. Luckily, I got an Uber that drove me straight to the Airbnb.

The week I had planned to spend in that beautiful, lively country became a nightmare. I couldn’t leave the bed. The only energy I had went into moving just enough to avoid a mess on the sheets. My daily “diet” was a banana, an apple, and an orange, everything else tasted like metal. The fruit shop next door was the only reachable source of food.

When I was awake, I spent time searching on Google what I might have. Why was I still exhausted? It had already been five days since the hike, and my body still felt weak. I could barely hold any food down, and I still had to run to the bathroom after every “meal.”

By day six, I had a high fever. My sleep became irregular, and hallucinations crept in. I no longer knew what was day or night; my sleep schedule was completely broken. One day, I woke up at 5 p.m. after eight hours of broken sleep and saw my parents standing over me, panicked.

“Sam, we came to see you. They said you were dying,” my mother whispered, clutching my hand.

“Who said that?” I asked.

“The Airbnb host. She said you messaged her asking for water in the middle of the night because you had no energy to get it yourself. That means you might be dying,” my mother answered.

“You came to take me with you?” I asked.

“No, we came to watch you die,” she said.

Then I woke up. I wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or a hallucination. I really saw my parents standing next to my bed. The touch of her hand felt real, her voice sounded real, and I could feel their presence.

I forced myself to drink water. Hallucination or not, I needed hydration more than anything.

I needed to call for help, to tell someone what I was going through. Since the beginning of my trip in Mexico, I had decided not to rely on anyone. I wanted to prove to the world that I was independent and a grown adult after coming out. But this time it felt like life or death.

I called my parents. My mother was shocked. She told me to weigh myself, and I discovered I had lost seven kilos in one week. My body refused to retain anything. I was running to the bathroom at least 30 times a day.

After much pleading, I agreed to see a doctor. I took an Uber to the hospital, but a private appointment cost $600, money I needed for the next three months of traveling.

I asked the receptionist if there was anything else I could do, and with pity in her eyes she suggested the Red Cross.

I had heard of the Red Cross before and thought it was only for natural disasters or emergencies. She looked at my pale, almost yellow face, and said, “You look like you are in an emergency.”

I Uber to the Red Cross, and for $18 and a four-hour wait, I finally saw a doctor. Three minutes with her changed everything. Without even looking at me at first, she listened to my story, asked key questions, then finally looked up, met my eyes and said: “You have a parasite eating you alive.”

She asked me to get tests because I needed treatment urgently or I would end up in the ER. I had nothing in me to collect samples with, so I went outside and bought cookies and chips. Thirty minutes later, I collected the samples, and within an hour it was confirmed, I didn’t have just one, but two parasites.

The doctor reassured me that they weren’t huge worms like the ones you see online, but microscopic invaders, ruthless enough to nearly shut my body down. My immune system, exhausted from the hike and the dehydration, had finally collapsed.

“Another day of this and you could have reached a dangerous level of dehydration, sleep deprivation, and starvation,” she said. “Whatever pushed you to come here today saved your life.”

More powerful than the image of some hero rescuing me was the hallucination of my own parents coming to watch me die.

A five-day cocktail of medication slowly reclaimed my body. I barely saw Bogotá, enjoyment didn’t exist. I spent the entire week in bed, and just two days after the doctor’s visit, I had a flight to Spain that had already been booked.

The two parasites had become world travelers with me. But two days after arriving in Madrid, I finally began to feel better.

I learned so many powerful lessons, most of all, that my body is not invincible. Adventure has limits. Excitement cannot override our basic humanity. Recklessness has consequences. Volcanoes can erupt, yes, but so can your immune system.

I survived that experience, and I learned a powerful lesson. But a few months later, I would discover that something else was about to erupt inside me, another lesson I would still have to face.