I only actually thought I was going to die for about a few hours.   I was in Corfu, Greece with my friend Sarah. We had finished our semester abroad in Rome.
Various people throughout our travel adventures had recommended the Pink Palace as an absolute necessity. We heard the name praised so many times that we decided to go.

Fortunately, the Pink Palace was the perfect way to end our semester. From the 4-wheeler safari to the nightly dance club to the booze cruise complete with cliff diving (which I did, by the way), Pink Palace was actually worth all the hype.

It all started on cross-dressing night. Earlier that day, I fell asleep on the beach. When I woke up, one side of my neck felt a little weird but I focused on a far more important issue: Who was going to loan me their clothes for cross-dressing?
I was becoming increasingly aware that my neck looked swollen.  A few hours later, I was sitting with a group of people. Among them was a guy, Kyle, who was studying to be a physical therapist. Kyle checked out my neck.  He told me I had probably pulled a muscle and to ice my neck.

Many hours later, with a very numb iced neck, I went to bed.
When I woke, it was hard to breathe. I sat up to tell Sarah and shifted whatever it was that was making it hard for me to breathe into a position that made it actually difficult to breathe. I looked in the mirror, saw half a football player’s neck, and realized there was a big problem in my immediate future.

We went to the Pink Palace reception desk to get a doctor. This is when I realized I might actually die.  Although I stayed fairly calm, I knew that whatever was blocking my airway could get bigger.  
Luckily, the doctor arrived quickly. He gave me a shot of cortisone, a thoroughly awkward experience I hope never to have again, and explained I was going to get worse quickly, and that I had to go to the hospital.

With this extremely reassuring news, Sarah and I got in a cab. Not only was the cab driver texting the whole way there, he had the audacity to light a cigarette on our way to the hospital.   My struggle to breathe was clearly not his first priority.

We finally made it to the Corfu General Hospital. Neither of us spoke any Greek beyond “thank you very much.” We obviously had no idea how to go about getting treated. We saw a long line that seemed to be for emergencies.
One of the ladies in line took one look at me and made sure I was seen immediately. I sat in the ER thinking, “So this is how it ends."

Eventually, I gave Sarah permission to call my mom.  Meantime, I was in given an EKG and a few other exams.  I was hooked me up to an IV, put in a wheelchair and taken upstairs “to surgery.”
I’m not gonna lie, I started to flip out a little, not sure what was happening or what they were planning on doing to me. I saw flashes of painfully potential possibilities like them cutting my throat without anesthesia to give me an airway.

In real life, however, the nurse wheeled me to another floor through the depths of the hospital, down a never-ending hallway. I’m almost positive I saw a dead body wheeled by me on a gurney.    Eventually I was taken to an area with very few lights that would be perfect for a horror movie location, which is for some reason where they kept their MRI machine.

The nurse ran a test that required me to lie down.  I couldn’t breathe. My eyes started to tear and I started to freak out until this amazing Hungarian doctor who spoke English helped me calm down. She stayed with me during my MRI and subsequent exams with the ENT, including the one where they stuck a long camera-tube-thing down my throat.

Both my parents, who, by the way, are divorced, were now aware of what was going on. Both have medical training and are generally assertive and demanding people. They each insisted on speaking to the doctor individually.

My mom proceeded to speak with the doctor multiple times a day for the duration of my stay. My dad, on the other hand, being an ENT, had very specific ideas about what the doctor should and shouldn’t be doing. Not exactly known for his world-class tact, my dad wound up getting banned from speaking with the doctor ever again due to what I can only assume was an extremely aggravating conversation between them. It ended with the doctor asking me to inform my dad that, “the best doctor is the one looking at the patient.”

By now, I was in a room.  It had about ten beds in it; five on each side. The beds were filled with sick people or their family members. (In Greece, there are no visiting hours and they welcome guests to sleep on the beds not being used.) The room had a balcony at the end of it with chairs set up so patients can go smoke outside. There was a bathroom a few doors down and a nurse’s station right outside.

When I was finally lying in bed, with multiple IVs stuck in me, reasonably certain I was going to survive this experience, I started to cry, really cry, almost uncontrollably in a way I don’t remember doing since I broke my arm when I was seven.

It was at this moment that I met Faye. She had been in a mo-ped accident, the bottom half of one of her legs was pretty much shattered. Her mother had lived in America for many years, so she spoke English. Knowing I was scared, she tried to calm me down. There was plainly no doubt in any of their minds that I was American, but they were all as nice as could be.

A little while later, the ENT came to my bed to try and explain what he thought was wrong. All I really understood was that I had to stay in the hospital. So Sarah left me her iPod.  She visited me everyday, bringing me books, vegetarian food and anything in English she could find.

Faye, her family, and all of her many guests adopted me; they translated for me and brought me whatever they brought her. There was also a British patient in the room.  She also kept an eye, and an ear, out for me, and told her sons to do the same.

I spent my time sleeping, not caring or even really noticing that the room had an average of 15 people in it at all times, something I would never be able to do under normal circumstances.

Five times a day by nurses put medication into my IV. I could actually feel the liquid being pushed into me.
At least twice a day, the doctor would wake me with the words, “Greetings from your mother. I just talked to her.” He said it with a thick Greek accent but, for some reason, in my mind, it winds up sounding more like Count Dracula.

He would take me downstairs and do the camera-tube thing down my throat, and print really nasty-looking pictures from it. One of the days, he tried to explain to me what was wrong. He pulled out a textbook and started pointing at pictures. However, it was extremely hard for him to explain. He told me a lot of things that it was like, but couldn’t give me the name of what it actually was.

Apparently, one of my lymph nodes swelled to the point that it blocked my airway. The closest medical condition to it is called “epiglottis,” which pretty much only happens to children under a year old, and apparently me.
Several days later, the doctor decided that I was stable enough to fly. He gave me steroids to take every few hours, and a copy of my medical records.  Sarah and I headed to Athens to await our flights back. That night in the airport hotel, I took perhaps the most glorious shower of my life.

When all was said and done, my phone bill from those days wound up costing almost twice my hospital stay, which I have to say, is probably the one true benefit of my having been in Greece at the time.

 I can’t say I’m glad it happened; I can’t even really say I learned anything from it, except maybe the way the Greek hospital system works. The sun didn’t seem to shine brighter or anything like that, but I appreciate everything the doctor, Faye, and the rest of the people I met did for me.

Plus, it’s probably good to have a near-death experience every once in a while, if only to remind you that you’re still alive. I guess that is the trade-off as I had an amazing experience abroad and a kick-ass stay at the Pink Palace, I can accept it, but I am glad I visited Athens and Mykonos earlier on in the semester, cause I’m still never going back to Greece.


By Victoria Friedman