Chapter 5: Goodbye, Vietnam

Before I Knew It Was Lupus: My Vietnam Story

20th July 2025

Looking back now, I realize this five-day trip was never as easy as it looked in the photos.

The overnight cruise we'd been counting down to didn't happen either. The weather turned again, and instead of drifting out onto open water for one last night, we stayed put in Hanoi. By then I think all of us had stopped being surprised. The trip had already taught us not to hold plans too tightly.

Before we flew home, we squeezed in a stop at a little Italian-inspired place, all warm lighting and borrowed charm, the kind of spot that feels like it was dropped into the city from somewhere else entirely. It should have been a nice, easy afternoon. For everyone else, maybe it was.

Our tour guide had been kind to us the whole trip, but that day I noticed it more. He had a particular patience with my dad; steady, unhurried, never once making him feel like he was slowing anyone down. Later he mentioned, almost in passing, that his own mother used to move through the world the same slow way. I think that was why he understood without needing it explained to him.

I wasn't doing much better than my dad that day. I was tired; the kind where walking properly stops. Both of my legs had cramped up on me, tight and uncooperative. But my mom was already carrying enough worry about my dad, and I didn't want to add my name to that list. So I smiled, bought myself a matcha like it might fix something, and pretended the ache wasn't there.

My neck had joined the complaint by then too. Stiff, heavy, refusing to loosen no matter how I turned it. I spent most of the bus ride just lying down, eyes closed, rubbing in the same oil that had stopped working days ago but that I kept reaching for anyway, out of habit more than hope.

Breakfast at Hanoi. Messaged my friends but nobody cares.

Keep smiling but deep down menahan sakit.

This was how I walked cos my both legs cramped

Rainy hurricane season. 

Peace

20th July 2026 

At the airport. 

I was tired, but it wasn't just my body, and I noticed myself pulling away from everyone around me, too, answering in shorter sentences, not quite present even when I was sitting right there. Back home, I didn't really get up for a week. I let myself disappear into the bed and stay there, the way you do when your body finally gets the chance to send the bill for everything you asked it to ignore.

Delayed drinks

pray at the airport & nobody cares

Vietnamese so kind. Thanks tour guide. 

Then, the nightmare happened.

See ya in the next lupus chapter!