From Emergency Rooms to Engine Failure, our Multi-Country European Trip Tested Everything

Here’s why I’m still grateful we went.

Author’s family at Matterhorn mountain, Switzerland

We plotted this journey like dreamers do—with spreadsheets and starry eyes. A year in advance, we envisioned three countries, nine people, one family tapestry woven across the Alps, lakes, and beaches of Europe. Switzerland, Italy, and the South of France. We weren’t chasing rest; we were chasing movement. €6000 later, we had toll passes, campsites booked, tents folded tight as secrets, and a trailer full of hope.

And then, two weeks before departure, the first thread unraveled.

My mother began complaining of pain in her abdomen—a low, persistent thrum. She complains often, so we rolled our eyes. But this time, the pain didn’t leave. She started running a fever, suffered chills, and couldn’t keep anything down. The family doctor frowned at her blood work: CRP at 100. Urgent, he said. A CT was necessary. But the hospital danced the bureaucratic waltz. No immediate scan. Just another ultrasound. Just more waiting. In Germany, diagnostics wait in line unless you’re crumbling.

Even as she weakened in front of our eyes, they treated her like a nuisance.

She asked for something to ease her symptoms. The nurses shrugged, bound by…