Annals of Sickness--How it Feels to Feel on the Brink of Death from a Virus (2015)

How it Feels When You’re About to Die from a Virus (2015)

I got a virus in Louisiana over the Spring Break that I'm still dealing with—the Virulent Louisiana Motel Virus with Vertigo. I feel now I know what it is to be close to death and what it is to grow old, and it has changed my perspective. Maybe I'll forget it, but I don't think so at the moment.

At my lowest moment, I lay in my friend Florence’s guest bedroom on the Wednesday night before my presumed departure on Thursday afternoon to return to California, while she went out to an important dinner after having driven us to Walgreen’s to get me some prescription medicine to prevent the paroxysms of coughing I had had that afternoon and the day before that practically did me in, breathing in and breathing out in the dark. Breathe in, then breathe out. On the outbreath, the gentle wheezing and squeaking of my pipes. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. Who could want anything more than this, lying down, warm, breathing in and breathing out, wheezing and gurgling? It's enough. I was suspended. I felt the gentle pressure of my body against the bed, my face resting on my hand on the puffy pillow, but just the gentlest. Darkness. Suspension. Warmth. Softness. Dark. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. The sound could stop, and I’d know I was dead. It could go on, I’d know I was alive. But it didn’t matter. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. Breathe in, silence. Breathe out, wheeze creak gurgle. It was like a gentle biofeedback, like some ancient Japanese Zen practitioner practicing regular breathing on his shakuhachi flute, an instrument invented as a biofeedback device so the breather could hear his breathing and train it to be regular. I knew my breathing was peaceful and regular by the wheeze creek gurgle. There’s nothing else. No pain, no planning. The limbs were not heavy. I didn’t feel them. But I had no inclination, no impulse, to think anything at all. Just to listen to silence (breathing in) and wheeze gurgle creak (breathing out). It could have gone on forever, and it did, until I fell asleep and felt the same way the next morning. I knew intellectually that I was not near death, but I felt I knew what being on the thin line between life and death would be like. A matter of complete indifference if I never moved or changed position or got up or the breathing stopped.

A few days later, back in California, at home, rehydrated and after a day and night of sleeping, I got up Saturday morning to eat something. I was so slow, and I still was unbalanced and lurched around the kitchen slowly with mild vertigo. The night before, too, I was moving so slowly, and lurching around and commenting to myself, "this is good. I lit the stove. This is good. Get the milk out. Put it on the counter. Don't let it fall. Good. This is good. Peel the tangerine. I can do this." I could imagine someone impatiently waiting for me to accomplish all these tasks and saying "here, let me do it." But I could do it. I want to do it. It's ok to be slow. It's OK to be feeble. I'm getting along. What's wrong with that? Just because I'm not like you? Why are you so impatient? I'm getting it done.

I can imagine some caretaker in my future, impatient with an old lady’s slowness, grabbing something from me to open the jar or take something from one part of the room to another or spooning food into my mouth too fast.

I realized I had something on a Friday morning, worse the next day, but we—my friends in New Iberia and I--chose to believe it was an allergy to the plentiful oak pollen all over the place. Sunday I drove back to New Orleans—how did I do it?—with dangerous vertigo and holed up in an airbnb for three nights so as not to spew germs into my friend Florence’s place, then spent the night on Wednesday with her, planning to go on my scheduled return flight on Thursday early afternoon—but I’d have to return the rental car somehow.