Until one morning when I woke up feeling like complete shit: nausea, headaches, dizziness, fever, vomiting, the works. So, off I sent my partner to a drug store to get some aspirin at least and something to cure my nausea, which was the most annoying part. I took some pills called METOCLOPRAMID (please remember that name and never take any in your life!!!) that apparently would do just that. I read the instructions and all they said was just that shouldn’t operate heavy machinery and some other warnings that only somebody who went to medical school would understand (or not even them).

This is where I fucked up. Seriously, I KNOW better than to take something I haven’t heard of before, but I was desperate and I actually thought a pharmacist would know drugs...!? What was I thinking?

By nightfall I was feeling a bit better, but still somehow desoriented, I thought it was just cause I didn’t really eat a whole lot all day. So, we went out to see somebody we had planned to meet that night. An hour later I couldn’t really stand up anymore so we went back to the room we were staying in. That’s when the most peculiar and scary thing happened. I didn’t think that much of it at that time. See, I usually don’t wear high heels, in fact I always wear somewhat heavy, but comfortable combat boots. On this occasion, being a bit dizzy and extremely hot I decided to wear some sort of sandal-slipper thingies with a bit of a heel. The point: my walk was funny, it was like I couldn’t really control my right leg to step forward, it was stuck stepping inward and my toes felt tight, it was like a muscle spasm. But I dismissed it as “something wrong with my sandal, maybe one of the straps is loose, or maybe I just can’t walk in heels”. Bullshit. The straps were all fine, just like they had been yesterday when my walk was fine as well.

I went to sleep and forgot about it, of course I tossed and turned all night long. Come morning I was even more disoriented than before and really annoyed by it. So we went for a walk and got to the beach and finally sat down because my leg was doing the same thing, it felt like a weakness in my lower leg that would not let me control it. And now, on top of everything I felt like all the rays of sun in the world were in my eyes, so I couldn’t see anything. I went in the water and cooled off, felt a bit better, but still it was like my eyes were attracting light or something (I later realized it was the fact that I couldn't fully close them that was annoying). We finally went back to the room and after eating something I felt a bit sick or drowsy again, so I took another pill (the instructions said to take 2 every time). Big mistake.                

By the time we finished eating it was dark out and my eyes were sorta’ fixed on one end of the room, I had been looking or starring rather strangely all day long. I thought I was paranoid and sick of staying in so we went out for a walk and some fresh air. Well... that didn’t help. In fact it got worse. I soon discovered that I was staring upwards or that my face looked like it does when I’m amazed and that no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get it to relax.

I thought it was just my imagination so we walked on. I did try to forget it so I attempted a joke looking at my boyfriend with my “mask like face” and asking, “Do I look stupid to you?” – yeah, I did. We got to a park and sat down on a bench but that’s when everything went from small fear to big fucking PANIC ATTACK, because my tongue felt swollen or my jaw felt weird, or I don’t know what but I couldn’t keep my mouth closed and, as you can imagine I started freaking out. I didn’t know what to think, maybe I had been bitten by something in the water, I didn’t know what the hell was going on.  And even worse, I didn’t know how to explain what I was feeling. Finally I did and my boyfriend freaked out as well, so we rushed back to the room to get my ID and some more money, jump in a cab and head to the emergency room. On the walk back to the room, I could feel my toes in my boots bending upwards and my fingers stretching painfully.

Another reason to increase my desperation was that we were in a strange town, 350Km from home and we had no idea where the hospital was, where any hospital was for that matter. When we finally did get to the ER and my neck was stuck bent to the right (the cab driver sure took his fucking time) I had the second panic attack of my life – first one being 20 mins ago in the park, or I’m not sure if that one had ended yet.

Anyway the line of people waiting outside was HUGE. I couldn’t cut in front cause they’d have probably lynched me. Ambulances kept coming in and those people, though they looked able to walk and better than me, had priority over the rest of us waiting. At one point after waiting for what seemed like eternity I couldn’t take it anymore and stopped a nurse on the corridor and told her, loudly, that my face was paralyzing and asked what the hell I should do. So she said, go in. I did, I told another nurse what was going on, she asked if my hands where numb and other things like that, (my every answer was yes) and... sent me back to wait in the hallway!

After another 10 minutes of waiting my boyfriend got pissed off and dragged me in and demanded somebody had a look at me. The two, two! doctors working were both busy so I sat on a bed and waited some more. Finally a doctor guy came and asked me what was wrong. I told him everything and he asked if I had been taking any pills lately. He named some brands of which I recognized that one I mentioned above. He told me never to take that again, and that no pharmacist has the legal right to prescribe pills without a doctors’ order. So he gave me a piece of paper with some writing and said to go to a room to get an IV with glucose and some vitamins to get that stuff out of my blood as soon as possible.

When we finally stumbled on to the right room yet another catastrophe occurred: aside the fact that everywhere we went there were dozens of people cramming into the hallways and rooms, this room was full as well. Every bed was taken, people waiting to get a shot or an IV like me. The, again, two nurses were constantly sending people out to buy stuff like injectable vitamins or that tube thing that goes from the bottle of the IV to the needle, from a pharmacy across the road cause they didn’t have any left. What the hell?

At some point one of them told me to lay down on a bed next to this old lady waiting for her shot. Then she took out the needle from the disposable package and put it in my vein, secured it with a bandaid, hung the huge fucking bottle of glucose and vitamins above my head and left. Now for all that stuff to leak into my body it was necessary for me to lie there without moving for more than an hour and a half, during which all sorts of people got their shots next to me, some cringing some crying, some passing out. It felt like I was on the fucking Titanic when it was sinking, people running around, yelling at the nurses who were doing everything they could, other people just laying there with a hand over their eyes and so on. All I could see was the ceiling and sometimes I raised my head and looked around for my boyfriend whom they wouldn’t let sit in the room with me cause there wasn’t enough space. I thought that stuff would never stop dripping. When it did, a nurse removed the needle and gave me some cotton with alcohol to put on the wound to stop the bleeding.I don’t know if it was what they put in my blood or the fact that I had layed there for 2 hours without moving, but I was dizzy and tired.

We were told to go see the doctor before we left. He explained that the drug I took was given only to prevent the nausea and vomiting that may occur after treatment with anticancer medicines and that all these serious side effects I had experienced weighed hard on the choice of the drug even in those cases case, not to mention mine!

We went back to the room where it took me a while until I was able to close my eyes, cause although I didn’t feel as bad as before I was a bit shocked. Everytime I closed my eyes they would twitch and open again.

Next morning I was fine, but I just wanted to go home, my vein looked swollen and blue (I looked like a junkie) and the muscles under my eyebrows, my neck and my fingers hurt a bit. I was afraid I’d get those symptoms back – which wasn’t possible, but hell. I don’t know if any of you know what it’s like to lose control over your movements, but let me tell you, it’s horrible, in fact the most horrible thing you can imagine. You feel lost and scared and incapable of doing anything.

I’m glad as hell that that’s all over with and the doctor gave me a list of some drugs that are connected to that one so I’d know what not to take...EVER.

Anyway, when I came back home I looked the drug up on the net. Here’s some fragments of what I found: “In deciding to use this medicine, the risks of taking the medicine must be weighed against the good it will do. This is a decision you and your doctor will make.  

Side Effects: Chills; difficulty in speaking or swallowing; dizziness or fainting; fast or irregular heartbeat; fever; general feeling of tiredness or weakness; headache (severe or continuing); inability to move eyes; increase in blood pressure; lip smacking or puckering; loss of balance control; mask-like face; muscle spasms of face, neck, and back; puffing of cheeks; rapid or worm-like movements of tongue; shuffling walk; sore throat; stiffness of arms or legs; trembling and shaking of hands and fingers;  tic-like or twitching movements;  twisting movements of body;  uncontrolled chewing movements;  uncontrolled movements of arms and legs;  weakness of arms and legs; aching or discomfort in lower legs;  panic-like sensation;  sensation of crawling in legs ;  unusual nervousness, restlessness, or irritability; confusion.”

So, please don’t learn this the hard way, like I did, don’t take any drugs without your doctors’ advice! I hope this whole thing has persuaded you into being very, very careful.

The vacation wasn’t cut short in length after all, it was just cut short in fun. But hey, now I’lll always think about the tremendous fun I had next to the tremendous fright.

Kinda’ sucks.