Tethered to the Drip

In nursing school, failure was not just a number - it was a weight.

Lyx Villegas had chosen a path where lives depended on precision, where one mistake could mean everything. But how could she save others when she was struggling to save herself? Practical exams shook her to the core. The pressure of clinicals left her breathless. The sight of her own trembling hands made her wonder if she was meant to be here at all.

She was drowning. And yet, she couldn't let go.

Like a patient tethered to an IV drip, she was kept alive not by certainty, but by sheer willpower. Every sleepless night, every desperate attempt to salvage what was left on her pride became a slow infusion of resilience. She wasn't thriving - she was surviving. And survival meant fighting, even when she had nothing left to give.

But the thing about being tethered is that you don't stay weak forever.

Somewhere between the failures and the fight, she found herself again - not as the girl who never failed, but as the student nurse who refused to surrender. She sharpened her mind, steadied her hands, and rebuilt the confidence she once lost. She clawed her way back up, not as the perfect student she was, but as someone far more powerful - someone who had known defeat and still rose from it.

She was no longer just tethered to survival. She was tethered to the dream. The battle. The victory that was hers to claim.