I quickly excused myself from the courtroom, trying to avoid any more attention. I had just dropped a stack of files in front of 36 potential jurors during a voir dire. As I leaned against the glass wall at the end of the hallway, pins and needles crawled up my arms and stabbing pains shot down my legs. I used every last bit of strength to move myself into the elevator, not knowing that this ride from the 14th floor of the Maricopa County courthouse would eventually land me in a wheelchair in Korea.

A week before, my doctor had prescribed me a powerful antibiotic called Ciprofloxacin for a routine infection. Soon after I took the drugs, the FDA opined in an emergency hearing that this class of antibiotic—fluoroquinolones—should not be used to treat minor infections. I was unlucky. As I learned in the weeks after my near collapse, I’d had a toxic reaction to the Cipro and suffered serious nerve damage.

Until my reaction to the Cipro, I’d envisioned my life as a path with regular milestones. I’d been working for a trial lawyer for over a year, and I expected to work there for another year before applying to law school. I had a plan. Cipro was never part of it.

My symptoms got worse and worse for the following weeks. I lost my energy, peripheral vision, and ability to walk. My brain was in such a fog that I could barely read a paragraph without getting a headache. I didn’t even have enough strength to start therapy for two months, and when I did, it was excruciating. Every effort to stand up made my tendons feel like they were going to split. My hands shook so much that I could barely hold onto the crutches. After a month of torturing myself in futility, I gave up everything: my dream of being a lawyer, my adopted country, and my hope of ever walking again. I moved back home to a small southern town in Korea.

A couple weeks after I landed in Korea, my grandma, knowing how much I loved baking, invited me to volunteer with her at a local nursing home kitchen. It all went well for a few weeks. I began to accept my physical limits and feel like a useful person again. One day, though, I was supposed to make 10 apple pies for the afternoon tea. After spending hours washing, peeling, seasoning, and cutting the apples into wedges, I poured the filling into pie pans. Only then did I realize I had forgotten to put a bottom crust in the pie pans, and I knew I wouldn’t have time to get the fillings out, clean the pans, and finish the pies before the afternoon tea.

Heat rose up my neck and tears welled up in my eyes. A few months ago, I’d been following my dreams. Now I was a disabled failure who couldn’t even follow a recipe. I blamed myself for going to the wrong doctor, taking the wrong pills, giving up on my physical therapy, and quitting my job. These botched pies seemed like the final damning proof of my uselessness.

I tried to wheel myself out of the kitchen before anyone checked on me, but I was caught by my grandma. She looked at the counter and said, “I see you’re making tarte tatin. Let me help.” Knowing nothing about tarte tatin, I watched my grandma rearrange the fillings and stick the pans directly into the oven. After twenty minutes, she laid the puff pastry on top of the fillings and put the pans back into the oven. Then she told me the story of how this upside-down tart was created in the 1880s, when Stephanie Tatin overcooked apple fillings while making a traditional apple pie. “It all started from a mistake,” said grandma. She took one pan out of the oven, skillfully ran a knife around the crust, and inverted the tart onto a plate. When I saw the beautifully caramelized apples on a crispy, buttery crust, I felt excited for the first time in months. Although I couldn’t have articulated this at the time, the tarte tatin helped me understand how my rigidity had prevented me from coping with an unexpected challenge. My recipe for success hadn’t panned out, but that didn’t mean all was lost.

A week later, I resumed physical therapy. It did not become easier. From time to time, I still had to hide in the corner, wiping tears and hoping no one would see. But the idea that I might be a trial lawyer in a wheelchair didn’t scare me anymore, and my struggle to stand up no longer reminded me of who I could have been without Cipro. I was working without a plan, now, and I’d have to discover what I could do. Months later, I boarded a plane back to the US, leaving both my wheelchair and my expectations behind.

Note from David

I spoke about this essay in the 7Sage podcast. Look for “Personal Statements - Tarte Tatin” (episode 31) or listen to it on SoundCloud here.