Annals of Sickness-How I Got Out of New Orleans While Miserably Sick (2015)

Annals of Sickness, How I Got Out of New Orleans While Miserably Sick

(2015)

I got a virus in Louisiana that I'm still dealing with. I got back Thursday night - so glad I hunkered down and made the trip back when I did, just holding on. It's good to be back. It's now Saturday morning and I just ate some salmon and cantaloup. It is good. Anyway I was lying there this morning in the dark before dawn, breathing in and breathing out, listening to my pipes whistle and creak and wheeze and gurgle and purr gently and softly, thinking about mortality and growing old. It's interesting. I didn't feel this way with breast cancer, because I didn't feel bad. Intellectually I understood it was serious but hey. This was different. I know that I'm not in fact close to death (although this promises to be a long nuisance), but it gave me insight. Of course, I hope I won't be in pain when I die, just as I am not now. It is very peaceful, lying there, warm and creaking, with no impulse to get up or make plans or do anything. Who could want anything more than this, lying down, warm, breathing in and breathing out, wheezing and gurgling? It's enough.

That's how I felt two days ago and why it was such an effort to rouse myself and arrange to get on the plane and return the car and take an 8 hour trip (change in Vegas) to arrive back to California. But it wouldn't have been any better if I stayed (I mean, the vertigo wouldn't improve, and probably the rest ditto, and it was under control anyway.) I called Sally about getting to the airport, but she was busy doing a catering job, and she put me onto Ron, her friend who is a taxi driver. I called him and he lives in Metarie and was transplanting tomatoes in the rain, so he said it would be an hour before he called me, but I outlined what I would need (we drive in two cars, me dizzy but careful, to return the rental car, then he drives me to the airport), and we made a plan and a schedule. Florence was at a meeting. She felt bad that she was not set up to take care of me, but in fact she did so much and it was terrible she had to cope with this and she did more than was required or expected. Anyway, Ron arrived, a big guy more than 6 feet with a big paunch and a longish white beard in a United Cabs van, and I had collected my stuff and packed it and did my best to throw things away and clean up after myself at Florence's, but I couldn't strip the bed. By now I had efficient adrenalin - not up and at 'em- but a single minded dizzy focus-- this goes here, throw away this, get that Delsym, put it in my day pack, ditto Kleenex and Perls and protein bar I'd bought, called ahead to get a wheelchair, fortunately had been paying cash for things getting rid of $20 bills from the ATM so I had 5's and 1's for the tips ahead, strangely I had brought my checkbook, not my usual practice on trips because I use cards and cash, but that's good for paying Ron, fortunately I had brought a giant suitcase precisely so I wouldn't have to pack carefully but could just get everything in, and Ron put stuff in his van and I followed him downtown to the car rental. It was raining, but he looked out for me and I gripped the wheel and focused on the back of his van, went in, they checked the car, I signed it and we were off to the airport which was a LONG way. Good thing I didn't try to do it myself.

I sat in the front seat with Ron and told him I didn't have the energy to talk much but would like to hear about him, and that is frankly what would have happened anyway because that's what he is like and that's what I am like. He pointed out new buildings - the new Charity hospital, the new VA hospital, and such. Did I have children? No. Welcome to the club. He didn't know how that happened but he was getting used to focusing on himself now. He's been clean and sober for (I forget how many years). He had a wonderful lady, together for nine years, but he gave up his vices for his mid-life crisis (he had made a kind of poem) in 1995, and he explained it to her and she said fine, but two weeks later she packed up her stuff and left him. Oh dear, I said, what was it? She didn't have his company sitting at a bar all night. He had gotten a job as a cab driver and you get random testing, and he wanted to keep the job. It was easy, he said, to give it all up. You don’t need nicotine patches! Now they want to sell you nicotine patches instead of cigarettes. On the way out he had pointed out places you can get some kinda item that masks the presence of marijuana in your system, which is fine if you just get tested regularly and you know it's coming, but not for random testing. And so went our conversation, touching on who killed Kennedy (he suspects Bush Sr., formerly head of the CIA, was somehow behind it) and other such topics that came to his mind. I was so grateful that this clean and sober guy was taking care of me in the dizzy rain and traffic and big suitcase. We arrived at the airport and he took the bags out, and I asked him what would be his heart's desire of what I owed him, and he said $33 is the regular fare to the airport, and we went to the car return, but I'm a friend of Sally's and whatever I want to pay him is fine. I wrote him a check for $100 and when he saw it he said, "You're a crazy lady!" I said, yes, I'm a crazy lady. He said you're practically family! Let me give you a hug, so he did. Then onto the wheelchair and flight, and I've been well taken care of since, and now I'm taking care of myself.