During my first trip abroad, I never imagined I would get a free tour of the London healthcare system. The furthest I had ever traveled was across the country when I made the move from central California to upstate New York. Nope, never even been across a large mass of water or outside of the United States. After years of contemplating when and how my mother and I would afford such a lavish trip, we made the jump for my 22nd birthday.
Our trip was just a week away when we heard about the blizzard. It was arriving on the same day as we should have been departing. We knew if that hit and we were trying to board a plane, we would promptly be seated and wait 17 hours to go anywhere. We contemplating changing our flights, but were hoping it wasn’t as bad as they made it out to be. It was. So, two days before our trip, we made the decision to just go. Get out of town before the storm even made its way over to cozy Midtown Manhattan. My mother still was seeing clients and we quickly decided over a ten minute phone call that I would have to change all the flights and hotel and car service. No biggie, I’m training to be an admin, so this was a good experience. Adding it to my resume. In 25 minutes after I had just finished shopping for a few vacay clothes, I was on the phone with our airline, booking our hotel for an extra night, and stopped off at the bank while on the phone still to exchange dollars for euros. It was the most exciting walk home I’d ever had. I even managed to route my walk to stop at Best Buy and pick up a GoPro I had preorder while on hold with the airline.
In 15 minutes, I had packed my bag (which I hadn’t even started putting together, knowing I had two days) and dressed for our red eye flight.
Right when my mom arrived home from work, we were off. My sister and brother in law practically ran into my mom on their way over to dog sit bringing their own furry friend to complete the happy family.
We had only a slight delay but ended up arrived at our layover early. Which didn’t make much difference since our connecting flight wasn’t for another 6 hours. We were hopeful we would get to see the city, but as per one worker, if you left the airport, you couldn’t get back in. So we dragged our feet around the airport until we saw another worker. “We should at least ask…” I told my mom. So, we went up and reluctantly asked, “Can we leave the airport and return? Or.. or is that not possible?”
She perked up and said, “Of course you can!” Her beautiful bubbly Irish accent ricocheting around the empty corridor. “But it’s a long walk towards the main entrance, let me take you out this way.” With a special access card and knowledgeable navigation of these employee only hallways, we could see out the glass walls to the tarmac and just past it- so much green. She held the door open so that she could get back in and waved, “Have fun now!”
We took a taxi both to and from the center city, ending up in a shopping mall with many familiar stores. Apparently this is the hotspot for American tourists? We wanted to see true Dublin! The one landmark we did get to admire was the spike! Or rather, The Spire of Dublin. After grabbing a bite to eat, we decided it best to return to the airport as to not risk somehow missing a flight we had six hours to catch.
During this flight, it hit me that I would be spending my birthday away from my sister, which has never happened throughout our whole lives. My mom was asleep next to me and I just couldn’t stop the tears from coming. I also was in much physical pain for some reason, most likely due to the air pressure, but for some reason, localized to my left wrist and forearm.
We arrived. The wet streets of London were glowing with the night lights in the city. It was exactly as though you had stepped into one of the many movies you’d seen featuring London. The excitement filled my chest with such awe I could barely believe it was actually happening. Though it may sound cliche, it truly felt like I was dreaming. Possibly because of the sleep deprivation of a red-eye flight, six hour -though exciting- layover, and time change. But I didn’t care. We were here! I saw the classic black taxis I so yearned for after seeing so many Sherlock episodes specifically featuring these very cars unique to Europe.
We arrived at our hotel, Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, and sadly found we would not have a view of the London Eye or anything except a lobby for that matter. The woman assisting us noted our disappointment and quickly began that we could upgrade if we liked, but it would be an additional charge of course. We pondered and started to settle with the room without a view. The woman didn’t budge. “You know what, I believe I have a discount that we could work out here.” She ended up saving us about £100 and gave us the view of our dreams. We could see not only the London Eye, but also Westminster Abbey and Big Ben all from our bedside! We knew that this would not yet be “goodnight.” I changed my outfit to a red crop sweater revealing both my shoulder and racetrack checkered jeans. I was ready to go out on the town. We found our way to the concierge and my was he wonderful. Not only did he give us ideas on where to eat, but also helped us plan and find the best deals for our entire touring trip for the next day which would be in Paris. He cautioned us a single day outing would not be enough to cover all of Paris, but we were adamant that we would cram as much as we could into our short four day trip.
We ventured out into a classic misty London rain. Though we took a few wrong turns and ended up finding a little grocery store for snacks and wine. I admired the classic British snacks Then we decided to give it another go at finding the restaurant the concierge had mentioned. We never found that restaurant until our last day in the cab back to the airport… Though we did discover the tube! Inside the Westminster stop was an array of shops, large grocery stores, pharmacies and of course restaurants! We strolled around inside of the large two level station until we found an Italian restaurant that looked cozy despite being inside a bustling train station.
Through the days we spent in London and Paris, it was one magical experience after the next. I recalling texting my now boyfriend about the picturesque time we were having. He responded almost prophesying the events of the next evening. He stated, “You’re having too good of a time! Something terrible is going to happen now.” Thanks for jinxing me!
The next day, I met up with an old friend from school for breakfast. He the. walked with me all the way from SoHo to Westminster Abbey where my mother attended church that morning. It was certainly brisk outside. Crossing bridge after bridge… we finally arrived. The day was spent mostly sightseeing and walking miles on end. By the evening a jolting chill was in the air. We crossed a final bridge leading us to the London Eye as we ventured towards our hotel. We passed a real estate office considering, “Well, I keep forgetting the exchange rate, but I feel like that’s not a whole lot of pounds per month..?” When we arrived back to the hotel, we decided to get dressed up for our final dinner out in London. This is the moment that I would never seem to be the same. I was powdering my face and suddenly felt an odd feeling of a dust particle stuck in my throat. I cleared it. Still felt a bit of something in there. I began coughing. Then more and more. I walked out of the bathroom to my mother not understanding what was happening. I suddenly felt I couldn’t breath. My mother seemed to be more attuned me even more than I was to myself. I looked in the long floor to ceiling mirror at myself and thought that this was it.
To make an extremely long excruciating story short, we ended up getting a lovely tour of the European healthcare system and still had no answers. I still was determined after our visit to the hospital that Florence Nightingale spent much of her time, that we still had to spend our last evening somewhere more special than the emergency room. We found a beautiful restaurant in which productions such as Downton Abbey and The Dark Knight has filmed and had such a wonderful final evening. Soup didn’t seem to scare my throat but any sort of chewing or swallowing halted me.
We found our way home, on a flight which we made a very good friend who took care of me while I had another (what now I know was a) panic attack after watching Kingsmen (apparently too much violence for this new brain I had) by handing me cup after cup of hot water and lemon. He sent us home with some special Indian wine to remember him by.
After a month of having these strange feelings of not being able to breath, they decided it had to have been a month long of panic attacks. After being hospitalized twice, I felt like an idiot and like I’d wasted everybody’s time. I was just happy to have found some answers. But to have an entire month of panic or anxiety attacks, every single day, it really can take a toll.
So, that’s my story. The saddest part to me is that my boyfriend will never know what I was like before this event happened. I know I have never been truly the same. Constant fear of drinking alcohol or even coffee, unable to be around loud things or people.. it changes your outlook on life. But I will never, ever regret that time my mother and I spent in London. It opened my eyes to the rest of the world and how beautiful it truly is. It was in a word, terrific.
Sophia Canfield 