Nothing More Than a Good Story

It was seven years ago, almost eight when I woke up one morning with a sinus infection. After years of dealing with sinus infections and having so many head x-rays that I should have a brain tumor, I was fairly confidant I knew that's what it was. I took some Ceclor, an antibiotic I had on hand. I had taken the stuff for years, and it always worked well for me. It was a Saturday, and I wouldn't be able to get in to see a doctor until Monday. I didn't want to suffer all weekend. At least, those were all the excuses that ran through my head as I took some antibiotics I shouldn't have had and shouldn't have taken without a current prescription.

I sat down to watch TV with John and was there a few minutes when the palms of my hands started itching. I unconsciously rubbed them at first until I noticed the itching wasn't going away, and they were turning red, from all the rubbing I thought. The itching became more intense, and without thinking, I started rubbing my hands on the carpet to get rid of the itching. John didn't think much of it. He's always seen me do strange things.

Rubbing my hands on the carpet felt great; as did rubbing my feet once they started itching too. It was a mere matter of minutes when the friction of our cheap pile was not controlling the itching anymore, so I thought maybe some water would help. I went to the kitchen and ran my hands under cool water, noticing how red (Was that swelling?) they had become. I asked John for his opinion, but he said it was just from rubbing them so much. He still didn't seem alarmed, which caused me to think I was going a bit whacky over this.

I went to lie down for a while, because I really wasn't feeling so good at that point. When I walked into the bedroom and saw myself in the full-length mirror, I thought I looked different. Was my face puffy? Were those blotches on my face and neck? I couldn't be sure. I wasn't thinking clearly, and John just seemed to think I was overreacting, so I figured I'd lie down and hoped it would go away. It didn't.

I was really starting to worry. The itching was getting even worse, and when I sat up and looked in the mirror, I didn't even recognize my own face; it was so swollen and red. I went to the living room and told John to look at me, but he didn't see it. I couldn't believe I could see an entirely different person than myself, when he was telling me it was all in my head. Was it? Was I finally just going crazy?

My breathing became short, and I didn't know if it was just because I was nervous or because something was wrong. I didn't make any connections. I didn't know if I was sick or having a nervous breakdown. I wasn't thinking clearly, and I itched worse than the chicken pox that hospitalized me when I was twelve. One more look in the mirror and seeing my eyes swelling shut told me I wasn't imagining everything. I told John I needed to go to the emergency room. I still didn't know what was wrong, but something was definitely wrong.

We loaded Hammy and ourselves in the car and made the short trip to the hospital. It was getting harder to breathe, and I started feeling nauseous. John sat with me while I tried to give the receptionist my information. She argued with me when I said I hadn't been there before, after a search under my social security number brought up the aforementioned chicken pox hospitalization over ten years prior. I asked where the restroom was because I felt sick. Even in my near delirium, I will never forget her saying, "If you're going to be sick, I can get you a pan." Bitch! Did I not just say I was going to be sick?

I just lay my head down on the counter. I was feeling weak, breathing raggedly and had a tenuous grasp on consciousness. I told John I thought I might pass out, and he began giving the receptionist as much information as quickly as he could. Hammy was playing in the waiting room area behind me. I still don't know if he saw me fall out of the chair when I finally did lose consciousness.

It was just black for a while, a deep, solid nothingness. Then I felt my legs in the air and people all around me. I could feel the blood pressure cuff on my arm; hear them calling my name, telling me to stay with them. I heard one of the nurses say I didn't have a blood pressure. I'm going to die, I wanted to tell them, but the void sucked me in again. I was going to die.

There was no tunnel, no light, no out-of-body experience. I have absolutely no awareness of anything from the time I felt death envelope me to the time I woke up on a table in an exam room. I don't tell people that detail unless they ask me. The few that have asked are highly disappointed and told me that it wasn't my time. Maybe it wasn't.

After a lecture about taking medication without a current prescription and how seriously and suddenly allergic to Ceclor I had become, I was sent home with new prescriptions in hand and an order to get a medical bracelet. I still find it strange that I could come so close to death and walk out an hour later as if nothing happened.

I got a medical pendant that I quit wearing because it's hideous and annoying. Now, the information is so terribly outdated that it's useless, and I'm too cheap to shell out the cash to buy a new hideous, annoying charm. I would rather get tattooed and very well might when I stop being such a puss about it. I list it in my wallet as a severe allergy, and it's in all my medical records. I know that doesn't stop it from being administered in an emergency, but how often do you really get Ceclor in an emergency? The doctors tell me, "Enough times to wear that pendant."

Maybe death didn't scare me that much, or I just don't care enough. It's not that I don't think I can be one in a million. It obviously can happen to me and did. I do everything outside of wearing that dumb tag. I have to take certain types of antibiotics when I get sick now, and I have to tell every doctor I ever see that I went into anaphylactic shock from Ceclor, and no, it wasn't just an upset stomach kind of allergy.

It wasn't that long ago that I wished I hadn't flushed all those extra Ceclor capsules down the toilet. I don't have to take a whole bottle of pills to die. I just have to take one, and it will be much faster the next time, if there were going to be a next time. There won't be. I'm past that now. The death I saw certainly doesn't seem very inviting to me.

If that is death, it didn't scare me either. I didn't suddenly appreciate everything in my life. I had no great revelations. It's just an event. A story. It's something that happened that makes people ooh and aah. I can be interesting for the five or ten minutes I'm telling about the time I almost died. You too can be the life of the party by almost dying. Irony at its finest.

John never really talks about the experience. Even when I asked him then, he gave sparse details and changed the subject. I think he felt guilty over telling me I was overreacting. Now he doesn't remember much. He has a way of forgetting things he doesn't like, like his entire first marriage. I've given up trying to get any information out of him and figure that's his way of dealing with it. I never needed a way of dealing with it. Now it just seems like a long time ago.