Who I am

Originally, my self-diagnosis had been ‘food poisoning’ – prognosis: good. I’d gone down to my friend’s apartment in Platteville the weekend before and thought I ate something bad on the road down – gas stations are not exactly known for their fine cuisine. I suffered all the usual symptoms – passing on details for the comfort of my readers – and spent a day and night feverishly curled up on my buddy’s futon. The next afternoon, I felt well enough to drive; the one-hour-forty-five-minute drive took four hours to complete due to multiple stops on the roadside to nap. I got home, walked downstairs to my room and passed out on my couch. I was exhausted from the digestive gymnastics of the previous day, nothing more. But the next day, I was delirious. With a 105 degree fever, I was delusional, incoherent and a great concern to my parents. The accident of the night before was still uncleaned at 4 PM when I woke up from my thirtieth 5-minute-nap of the day and saw my mom, dad and sister standing nearby; they were speaking in hushed tones and looking occasionally in my direction. My mom came over and she was using the tone she used when I was four and had an earache: “Michael… You aren’t well… This is serious, and we’re calling an ambulance. They’re going to take you to the hospital.”

Fast-forward a few hours and I was being checked in to the hospital; forms were being filled, labels were being made, plastic wrist jewelry with my patient ID number was being stamped – an extra one was being hand-written on red plastic: allergy: Sulfa – and I was being interrogated. How did I feel? When had symptoms begun? Any previous history of… Everything. They asked me everything and I couldn’t muster enough coherence to be able to answer effectively enough. They asked me to lift my leg and I told them I couldn’t – the swelling was significant enough that I didn’t have the muscle strength in my feverish state to comply – and for the duration of my stay I was being tested for paralysis. But then the medicine came and I slipped away into a dream, both terrible and welcome. From my recollection, I slept most of the next four days with little pockets of wakefulness and lucidity. In between long blinks, I got snapshots: my mom sitting by my bedside, her hand on her rosary as she watched me. Blink. My beautiful friend Mike, perching on the chair as if any minute he would spring up and fly away as quickly as he had arrived – when he saw my eyes open, he presented me with the three Beanie Babies he had picked up for me on his way over. Blink. Ashley, an old and good friend from high school, who now had started working at the hospital and stopped by to chat when she recognized me from the hallway. Blink. My sister, showing me the green-gold hosta my department had sent over from work, along with the balloons and a horrifically ugly green grasshopper which had been an office joke for the better part of four months at that point. Blink. I don’t remember the rest of the time because I slept; the sleep was brought on by the medication they were giving me for the swelling in my leg. There apparently are some pills that are used for fluid reduction that have the wonderful side effect of horror-esque nightmares, and waking terrors. I was on these pills and my mother informed me a year after the fact that I had been awake at times, telling her about my dreams. She said they were terrible and I still don’t know exactly what I had said because she will not tell me any details.

My fever continued to grow. The medication was wrong. The doctor came in, avoiding eye contact, to tell me that the water pill they had given me was made with one of the main ingredients being the one thing which I am allergic to – Lasix was made with Sulfa. He came back a short time later to tell me the state of things. And still, my fever continued to rise. The raised heat had incubated some sort of infection in my leg, which was now swollen to the point of bursting in lesions which opened and seeped when I so much as moved my leg in bed, let alone walked. They diagnosed me with cellulitis (‘blood poisoning’) – prognosis: treatable. They were going to install a central line – an IV line that they can plug and unplug as needed without needing to poke every time – and they were going to send me to Mayo Clinic. Then he said the thing that makes people terrified of hospitals. “Because of the severity of the infection, and the worsening of your fever, we don’t know if it is all from the medicine. Your leg might now be septic.” I nodded, listening and itching – the side effect of my allergic reaction that most people noticed from fifty feet away was red, irritated skin and hives – and not worried; I’d heard that word on Scrubs, and E.R. and House – it couldn’t be that bad, right? “It could be fatal.” I stopped itching.

So now I was dying and doing my best impression of a boiled lobster. They came in a few minutes later to do the central line – my dad stood by me, his expression inscrutable as always and because I had to have a cover over my face for the surgery, he held my hand; I still remember every second of that surgery because of that fact. After that was done, I asked everyone to leave the room. And then I cried. I cried like I was watching the ending of Old Yeller, Where The Red Fern Grows, A.I. and Armageddon in simulcast. My leg was on fire, the sheets irritated every inch of me that wasn’t being irritated by my hospital gown, and my face itched more when I wiped my eyes. I sat there, and slowly I calmed down; there was no noise – they must have had an ordinance against talking in the hallway when someone gets this kind of news – and I was afraid that the fever had burned out my ears. I watched the IV drip. I watched Go-green the ugly grasshopper stare at me with the irritatingly happy-to-be-ceramic look on his face. One of my physical therapy techs poked his head in – he’d heard about the latest diagnosis and offered to pray with me. We prayed. I thanked him. I felt no different. I don’t know how long I was alone next, but soon a knock came on the door. The nurse needed to take more blood samples before they sent me to Mayo.

“Hi, can I come in?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“How are you doing today,” she asked as she prepared the small sample tubes and the needle – the central line was delivering my IV and I would still have to be stuck for blood samples.

“Well, someone’s here to stab me and I may or may not be dying, but at least I still have my looks, so I can’t really complain.” I gave her a wry smile – the best I could muster – and she stared at me for a beat or two. Then she burst out laughing as I started to chuckle.

“You seem rather upbeat for someone who got that kind of news.”

“Well…” I paused, thinking about it for a moment. “My day may or may not already be crap, but I guess that’s no reason to make it worse for people around me. This could be one of the best days of your life – who am I to bring you down?” I gave her a wink and proferred one of my arms for her to probe for veins.

Believe it or not, some questions are asked of me more often than I think is typical. One in particular stands out and is the one I wouldn’t mind cutting down on: “What made you this way?” It’s not addressed in derogatory fashion, with jeers and sardonic sneers; nor is it accompanied with the sad look you give a little boy who has been separated from his parents at the mall. Some part of me – who I am, how I deal with people – strikes people as peculiar and the only words for that quality are basic: my attitude. My attitude dictates my approach to life, the quality of my interactions with with those around me and even how I plan for the future. My attitude is different from my personality – this is not going to be one of those drawn-out odes to my sheer tower of ‘awesomeness’ or my charming quips. My attitude – your attitude – is the core of your being, the precedents by which you judge and sieze opportunities, and there is no more precise illustration of my attitude than this particular conversation. In that hospital stay, I was diagnosed with blood poisoning, poisoned with toxic medication, survived a 10-minute near miss with amputation, developed and resolved a mysterious-in-origin pulmonary embolysm. Since then, I’ve been to the hospital again, been fired, gone to school to be ostracized for the age difference between me and my project team, left one very long-term girlfriend, and been dumped by another. Through all of this, I’m still the guy with a smile on my face and a wise-crack at any opportunity or open moment of silence. What made me this way? Maybe it’s what my dad always told me when I was little: “If you act enthusiastic, you will be enthusiastic.” Whether it is, or not… It works, and I am.