July 9, 2004, was a bad day.
I’m tired and squinting so this will be a very abbreviated story.
I woke up after 5 in the morning with a violent headache, a fever, dizziness, and extreme senstivity to light. I was dehydrated and exhausted.
It’s now after midnight, and I haven’t slept since then. I just got back from almost 8 hours of misery at the Tri-City emergency room.
Before you worry, I’m okay. But I wasn’t so confident earlier in the day.
Even though I have never had a migraine, and even though I have never drunk any alcohol, I felt like I was hung-over and having a migraine this morning. I had never felt anything like it. The throbbing pain in my head was unbearable. But after hours went by and I had done a good job hydrating myself, it wasn’t going away. Don’t migraines only last a little while?
I was able to get a 4 p.m. appointment with my physician. When we met, he grew very concerned. He sent me to the emergency room for a spinal tap, because he feared I had meningitis.
Ugh.
There are two main types of meningitis, which is a disease of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. One is viral and one is bacterial. Bacterial meningitis often attacks without warning and leaves the victim with only hours to live. Viral meningitis, less severe, goes away but is devastating while it’s in the system.
I was not looking forward to a spinal tap, and the prospect of this disease scared me. A lot.
I had to wait in the waiting room for three and a half hours. It was the worst. I was running a fever of about 104 degrees. My body would become extremely hot and then, and this was the terrible stuff, extremely cold. For about 2 hours I shivered and shook violently next to my mother in a small chair, surrounded by pale, miserable, worried people.
Triage nurses would occasionally re-check my temperature. One of them seemed a bit unpleasant.
“37-8,” she said, after taking it.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“Oh, you want it in Fahrenheit, do you.”
Yes, bitch, I want it in Fahrenheit.
I would later find out that that nurse, who would take out my IV and clean me up, was quite pleasant indeed.
The doctor and all the nurses were all great people. They made the experience a lot easier.
After the waiting room eternity had ended, I finally got a bed and some attention. They did tests of every kind. The IV was first. Man, do I hate IVs. Then all the blood work — three extractions, two on my arm and one on the back of my hand. Youch. Not much fat on the back of a hand.
Then came the throat swab. Then came the nose doohickey. A man came in and pushed a string through my nose to touch the back of my throat. It’s one of the weirdest things I ever felt. I feel so violated.
And of course there was the urine sample. I must have stood there for 20 minutes, cold, unable to urinate. “Pee, pee, pee!” I kept thinking. I imagined Niagara Falls and waterslides. Nothin’. So I asked for some water, and that did the trick.
They never did the spinal tap. The doctor determined I didn’t have enough symptoms to warrant meningitis. This was a huge relief. Facing serious illness/death was eye-opening. I thought of the people I would want to talk to before dying, and of the only person I would want to see.
For some reason, since I was very little, I always thought 19 would be the year I would die. And lately I have been thinking a lot about death and departure. Before going to sleep last night, I had the premonition I would be very sick.
The blood tests came back. I have had mononucleosis. This was a relief and a disappointment. It all makes a lot of sense in hindsight. It explains why I have been deathly tired at work for the last three weeks, my throat often sore and my body achy.
Today must have been the breaking point. Hopefully the worst is over. I already feel much better than earlier. I have never been sicker in my life, never experienced anything remotely like this.
I guess I won’t be kissing any girls for awhile.