The Other Side of the Sky

Although she was heavily sedated on her trip to Germany, Ahmedi was awake enough upon arrival at the German hospital to notice how clean and modern it was. She spent much of the first part of her stay in the German hospital coming in and out of consciousness due to the pain medication. She tells how the hospital staff put her in a tub of warm water and let her slowly loosen and remove her bandages herself, as her pain permitted. This experience contrasted sharply with her time at the Afghan hospital, where every day she was wheeled into a separate room where the bandages that had become stuck to her wounds were yanked off and replaced. She spent almost a month and a half at that hospital, and this daily ritual was the most painful part.

In Germany, however, it became evident that the care she received in Afghanistan not only saved her life but enabled her to have the chance to walk again. Ultimately, the German doctors had to amputate one leg and remove the knee joint of the other leg due to infection of the bone from dirt and blood. They fused the thighbone to the shinbone of her right leg.