“What are you drinking? It looks like you’re walking around with a giant margarita,” my physical therapist chuckled.
Despite sensing his collegial intentions I bristled, took another sip, and explained that the beverage helped manage my nausea. I was in my third year of living with herniated discs from a work injury that caused muscle weakness in one leg and searing nerve pain in both. What Sean referenced was that instead of a slightly tinted water, I now commuted around New York to my various appointments chugging an enormous, neon-yellow drink. The sour, Warhead-like flavor, in addition to quelling the need to vomit, also brought my mind back to the present when anxiety sped me into the future or depression sank me into the past. I would later read on Healthline “Go easy, though. Ingesting too much lemon juice in a brief period may make nausea worse,” but at the time I felt convinced pouring it my water helped.
Later that month, while getting ready to take the subway to Yankee Stadium, I made a conscious choice to leave my bottle behind because a similar one had been confiscated at the entrance the season before. On this Friday afternoon in July the temperature was almost 90 degrees outside and even hotter underground. I told myself I could survive one train trip without my precious lemon water and consoled myself with thoughts of purchasing a multitude of beverages at the game. Since I knew stadium drinks would be expensive, I didn’t want to spend any money on a bottle of water to carry. All or nothing.
While waiting for the train, commuters around me fanned themselves and sighed. I dabbed my face, watching the minutes on the board creep down from six to four, then finally two. I silently cheered my near-victory, right as nausea shot up my chest and spots bobbed in the corners of my eyes, tunneling my vision. I reminded myself the train was about to arrive, that I could make it, but then my legs went cold and I thought, Back up, to avoid falling onto the tracks.
At first the voice asking, “Are you okay,” confused me. I fainted with my head landing on the sweater I brought for the evening chill, which to my still-closed eyes felt like a comfortable pillow. I thought I was waking up from a delicious nap. Why wouldn’t I be okay? As I regained consciousness and realized what happened, I cursed my stupidity in thinking I could travel anywhere without my massive bottle of lemon water. An ambulance arrived and the paramedics released me after my blood pressure returned to a normal range. I used my allotted drink money on an Uber back to my apartment where I cuddled my cat and grieved for my body.
Three years later, in the fall of 2021, I had a much-needed back surgery. My parents flew from Puerto Rico to New Jersey for the three of us to live together in my childhood home while I recovered. Unable to climb the stairs to the kitchen my parents brought me my meals for weeks. With all their help I asked for the lemon juice sparingly, slowly weaning myself off my acidic delight. Going to doctors’ offices I learned to leave a drink in the car because managing doors with a cane and water bottle was simply too awkward.
During the holidays, still mostly recovering in bed, I read a David Sedaris essay satirizing the hydration phenomenon. Sedaris wrote,
“Go more than five minutes without drinking, and you’ll surely be discovered behind a potted plant, dried out like some escaped hermit crab. When I was young no one would think to bring a bottle of water into a classroom… Now, though, you see people with those barrels that Saint Bernards carry around their necks in cartoons, lugging them into the mall and the movie theater, then hogging the fountains in order to refill them. Is that really necessary?”
If I read the essay before surgery, I probably would have felt an urge to compose an unsent letter detailing the medical reasons why one might carry a “barrel.” With healing and perspective though, I felt both so seen and unseen, and glad I could embrace the duality.
“Yes, sir, it really felt necessary,” I replied, choking through laughter, thinking of the last person to poke fun at the water bottle I used to refill ad nauseum throughout the day.
Studio Sabiduria 