Unfortunately, I’m something of an expert on fainting. I’ve fainted a lot. I fainted for the first time when I was 12 or 13. I was in the bathroom of the barn where my horse lived, and I whacked the funny bone part of my elbow on the light switch. Next thing I knew I was on the floor, feeling weird and sweaty. I ran out of the bathroom and said, “You guys! I think I just fainted!”
My friends just shrugged and said, “We were wondering why you were in there so long.”
I got my nose pierced my freshman year of college: fainted. I went with my friend Lauren when she got her navel pierced; I took one look at that slender steel rod passed through the skin of her belly button and fainted. I fainted twice during my semester in London sophomore year for reasons I don’t remember, but were probably in some way related to Jack Daniels. Then I didn’t faint again for awhile. Then I got a tattoo: fainted. Then one night I was walking down Broadway and I tripped, fell, slammed my knee into the pavement on that same nervy funny bone part, fainted, cracked my head on the sidewalk and had to get staples in my scalp. One day in Crowbar I was carrying the cash box through the bar balanced on my hip. Turned a corner, slammed into the wall, effectively punching myself in the liver with a ten-pound metal box. Fainted. A couple of summers ago I got bit on the foot by a large dog: fainted.

I have come to recognize the signs of a faint coming on: horrible tingling numbness in the hands, watering mouth, cold sweat, pin pricks spreading down my neck and back, a darkening of the peripheral vision. As unpleasant as all that sounds, what’s worse is coming to. I don’t know how long I’ve been out before, but it feels like hours, though it’s probably less than a minute, maybe two. I have these intense vivid dreams that incorporate whatever is happening around me. Then my brain comes to realize what has happened—fainted again—but my body won’t respond for a few moments while I’m overcome with this oppressive buzzing sensation. I’ll be able to talk, to say, I’m okay, or I fainted. But I won’t be able to open my eyes or move my limbs. The eyes cooperate first, and normally I’m greeted with concerned expressions, or sometimes a wall or a ceiling or a sideways view of a floor. Once I’m able to sit up and move more, I’m hot and sweating, my hands are shaking, I can’t stop clenching my teeth, and it’s all I can do not to sob. It’s pretty horrible.

My most recent fainting spell was the other night at Devilicious Warung in Ubud. It had been a good day. I wrote in the morning, did some souvenir shopping, met Jenny for a hookah and a lovely afternoon watching the rain fall on the soccer field while hearing the bright chaotic Balinese music blaring out of the music center across the way. Jenny and I said our goodbyes, and I took a walk around the Monkey Forest, then, after a shower and some quality time on my terrace, it was time for dinner.

I had walked by Devilicious several times and had always meant to try it, and 66 “very good” and “excellent” reviews on Trip Advisor assured me that it would be worth the trip. Also, it was rumored they had great hamburgers, and a hamburger just sounded like the most perfect thing right then.

I’m not sure it was the burger, which was pretty good, though the beef was much different than the free-range, grass-fed hippie beef I usually eat in San Francisco. It was tougher, gamier, as though the cow had a hard life and a bad end.

I thought to myself, well, they definitely didn’t make this out of one of the sacred cows.
That said, it still hit the spot and the fries were good and they had actual ketchup and everything. I was regretting nothing. And then.

Then as I was halfway through my nightcap beer, on the verge of finishing the sixth book I’ve read on my vacation, content as could be, I was suddenly awash in intense nausea, and was worried for a minute that I was going to hurl right there at the table. But this awfulness was followed swiftly by the symptoms of a fainting spell. I closed my book and started looking around for the waitress to get the check.

Then I was dreaming. I don’t remember what it was I was dreaming, but it was all in French, then the dream became dark and hot. Then I recognized the horrible heavy buzz pressing down on me, getting in my ears, like a huge woolen blanket, soaking wet and covered in bees. And I realized, with no small degree of fright, that I had fainted.

When my eyes opened there were three or four French people. (I now think of French travelers collectively as “Zee French.” Every time I see a group of French people here, which is frequently, I think, with a Parisian flair, Zee French, zay are everywhere!) Zee French had been sitting across the narrow room, and said that I suddenly just fell over on my table. They came and lay me down on the padded bench I was sitting on. I can be very grateful I did not fall over backwards and hit my head. They surrounded me, asked me if I was diabetic? No. Epileptic? No. Dehydrated? No. Drunk? No. High? No.

“Are you here alone?” asked one of Zee French.

Yes.

Yes, I thought, I am quite alone. And I’ve just fainted in the middle of a restaurant in a foreign country that doesn’t have a bang-up reputation for medical treatment. Because what started out as a fainting spell brought on by food poisoning was quickly becoming far more dire in my mind.
I wanted nothing more than to get up and leave and go lie down, but even the short walk to my hotel seemed too daunting of an undertaking right then. Zee French dispersed, a waitress brought me a fresh bottle of water, and I thought of Jenny, my one friend in this hemisphere.
I abhor asking people for help. I dread being dependent, or worse—perceived as dependent, in any way. The thought of burdening people with my needy needs makes me intensely uncomfortable. But I was in a state. I was physically and emotionally shaky and I didn’t know what to do. It was 4:30 in the morning in California. Not a good time to call anyone there, and what could anyone possibly do from that far away? I wasn’t about to call my mom—I would have alarmed her. I thought of calling TK, but all that phone call would accomplish is to wake him up in the middle of the night and worry him. Ditto G. or Jo.

Meanwhile, Jenny was barely a mile away.

It’s ridiculous how long it took me to admit to myself that I, well, I needed her. I thought of how I’d react if she was the one getting in touch with me with some weird drama at 9 at night. I would have happily dropped whatever I was doing and come directly to her aid. And if there’s one thing I know about Jenny, is she’s a lot like me in a whole lot of ways. So, I reasoned, it was a good bet that she wouldn’t roll her eyes, think of me as some sort of ridiculous needy drama queen.
I didn’t have her number, only her email. I could only hope she was online and that the old-fashioned Edge network didn’t let me and my iPhone down.

“Are you awake?” I asked coyly in the subject line. “I need help,” I wrote in the email.

The immensity of my relief at her prompt reply triggered a fresh wave of tears. She came riding to my rescue on the back of a motobike taxi in ten minutes, and I really tried not to cry some more as she paid my tab over my fumbling protestations and gathered my things for me while I tested my wobbly legs in a standing position. She walked me back to my hotel and I told her, mostly jokingly, to maybe make sure I was still alive if she didn’t hear from me by 10am or so.
And the whole time she was as delightful as always, not remotely annoyed that I had busted in on her night with a minor pseudo-medical drama. She joked that our afternoon with the hookah wasn’t enough—I had to go and have a fainting spell so we could hang out one more time before I left Bali. Which on some subconscious level might actually be true.

But two things I know for sure: having made a friend who I could reach out to in that moment was one of the best things that happened to me this trip. The other thing is, asking for help, even from someone I don’t know very well, it seems to not be nearly as deadly as I think it is sometimes.