An Illness

An Illness

It was sometime shortly after the second fall back in Border City that I had that little virus, a little cold or something like that.  That’s all it was.  I hadn’t bothered to see Carol because there was no pill for treating a viral infection anyway.  Just drink lots of fluids, take a little ASA and it would go away.  And, it did. 

A few weeks later, I was having chest pains and thought that I had another bug.  But I was getting tired easily and couldn’t handle things that just a few weeks earlier had been simple.  Lise noticed a change in my color, as I was becoming more pale, but what she noticed most, was my lack of interest in her, particularly at night when we were alone.  “It’s not that I don’t love you any more Lise, or that I don’t find you interesting.  Quite the contrary, you are becoming more beautiful every day and I want to be with you.  We’ve had so much fun together.   I just don’t seem to have the energy to keep up with you.”

“Then go see Carol.  She might be able to give you something.”

“I don’t want to bother her.  Besides, it’s probably nothing and will go away in a little while.”

“No!  You need to see the Doctor.  If you won’t go to her, I’ll get her to come here.”  Lise could really be insistent if she felt she needed to, and when she was like that, there was no sense arguing. 

“Fine, I’ll see her next week.”

“You’ll see her in the morning.”

And see her I did.  Carol listened to my symptoms which included shortness of breath, palpitations, loss of sleep and generally, little energy.  She felt my pulse, took out her stethoscope and listened to my heart and took my blood pressure. “Are you having any trouble breathing?  Does it cause you any pain?” she asked.

“Yes, some.”

“Have you had any colds or little illnesses recently, like in the last month or so?”

“No,” I have been pretty healthy up till this.

“Are you sure that you have not had any colds or the like recently?”

Then I remembered the cold.  It was so minor that it didn’t seem important, but it was important to Carol.  “How long did you have it?”

“Just a few days.  It didn’t even cause me much trouble, you know, like a sore throat and stuff like that.”

“Warren, I need to do some tests.  The clinic has an X-ray machine.  I want to have a look at your chest and see what’s going on in there.  You may have a lung infection.” 

“Well, can’t you just give me something for that and let me get on with business?”

“No, this could get worse.  We can’t have our president coming down with something, can we?” 

“I don’t think this is anything.  Lise made me come see you.”

“Good for Lise.  Come on; we’re going to the clinic right now.”  Although we used the clinic for things like X-rays and the like, no one stayed there regularly as it wasn't required.  Doctor Manning usually remained around our local shop unless someone needed her expertise elsewhere. Carol turned on the generator and on came the lights.  While she searched for the plates for the pictures she was going to take, I entered the room with the equipment per her instructions.

As I sat waiting, I remembered being in these rooms on many an occasion.  But the first X-ray that I ever remembered was one in a well known clothing store, long since closed since the demise of the original owners.  Dad had purchased many of my clothes from these fine people.  Every year, just before school opened in September, he took me there for a new pair of shoes.  The dangers of excess X-ray were unknown to the public at that time, so many shoe stores wanting to have the latest in technology had invested in a machine that could see the bones in your feet while you were wearing your shoes.  It seemed like a good idea.  I still remember looking down at my feet.  “Yup, the shoes fit perfectly,” Dad would say. 

Then there was that broken bone in my arm. Another time, I had chest pain and the doctor thought it was my heart.  So did I actually, but later realized it was gall stones.  I still have those and they don’t really bother me.

Carol marched into the room and threw a white gown at me.  “Here, put this on,” she ordered.  How could I refuse?  It was only Carol, but I wasn’t going to stand around naked in front of her.

“Do I really need this?  Why don’t I just take off my shirt?”

“As you wish,” she said.  And there I stood bare skinned as she pushed me up again the icy surface of the X-ray machine.

“O crap this is cold!”

“I told you.  Now shut up and take a deep breath.”

“Has anyone spoken to you lately about your bedside manner?”

“Be quiet.  Take the deep breath and don’t move.”  She disappeared into the side room.  There was a little clicking and clunking and she was back, turning me to the side.  “Same orders.  Big breath, hold it, and for Pete’s sake, don’t move.”

When she returned the second time, she had me sit down and wait while she developed the negatives.  I had had quite a bit of experience in black and white photography years before, but when digital came, it lost most of its fascination.  I still liked taking pictures, but the magic of the darkroom was lost.  I had used photography at one time as a reward for my more diligent students who were interested. No, it wasn’t to get them into the dark room.  Some of my former students had gone on to become photographers in their own right.  I was feeling a little nostalgic when Carol returned with the clips.  “If I had had negatives like that when I was doing photography, I wouldn’t have needed an enlarger.”

“Let’s see if we can see anything here,” Carol stated and snapped the X-rays onto the lit-up screen.  As I mumbled on in the background, she intently studied my photogenic interior.  “Nothing wrong with your lungs.”

She sat me down and gave me a shot of something that she said would make the picture show up as the soft organs weren’t going to be very visible in the X-ray otherwise.  Then after several minutes, we did the X-rays again.

I walked around admiring the equipment as Carol snapped the latest photos onto the screen and studied them.  After a few minutes she invited me to sit down as she took a seat facing me.  “Warren, I don’t think I can do anything for this.”

“That’s what I said from the beginning.  It’s just a little bug that will go away on its own.”

“No, Warren.  This is not going away.  The damage is done and is getting worse by the day.  I don’t think that you are the kind of person who wants anyone to beat around the bush.  So, I’ll give it to you straight.  That wasn’t a cold you had.  I believe that you have a condition called myocarditis.”

“That sounds like heart.  I thought you said you suspected my lungs.  Itis?  Doesn’t that mean inflammation of…of my heart?  That doesn’t sound good.”

Carol came right to the point.  “Warren, my old friend, you have a heart that is probably degenerating as we speak.  There are drugs that can extend your life, but you need to prepare for the worst.  I’ll see what I can find at the hospital and pharmacies as far as medication is concerned, but most stuff is out of date, and I don’t have the knowhow to reproduce it.  We can check with the survivors to see if anyone was in pharmacy before the invasion.  I’m so sorry Warren.”

“How long do I have?”

“I’m not sure.  There are other tests we could do if we had the equipment.  You know, Warren, maybe I’m totally mistaken…” she stopped in mid sentence as she glanced back at the X-rays on the wall.

“But you’re pretty sure, aren’t you?”

“I’m afraid so.  But there's always hope.  The pain may indicate that the infection is still raging and maybe, just maybe I can find some medication to help.  Pray that I do.”

“Carol, promise me that you’ll not tell Lise.  I don’t want her worrying.  She has enough on her plate.”

“Warren, she has to know.  This wouldn’t be fair to her.  She’s a part of your life and deserves to know why you’ve been the way you have.  Don’t forget, ‘in sickness and in health’”

“Yeah, and ‘till death do us part.’  At least you can let me do it.”

“Very well.  But don’t put this off.  I’ll drive you home now, but you aren’t to work. You can rest for the remainder of the day.  Take it easy and you’ll be okay.”  She assured.   

***

Doctor Manning’s search for the needed medication was unfruitful.  Daily, I felt the life draining out of me.  I was a real water drinker and loved it cold and in large quantities.  Doctor’s orders?  I could eat ice in small quantities.  Apparently, this would reduce the volume of blood in my system and make it easier on my heart.  Lise, who continued to pester me about what was wrong, was given misleading information to keep her happy.  She seemed to buy into the idea that I simply had a particularly difficult flu virus that was hanging on.  Doctor Manning didn’t tell her the truth either, but continually badgered me to do so, which I in turn promised to do, but failed to execute.

Elex, who couldn’t help but notice my decline, my frailty, and had given up on getting anything out of me, took it upon himself to speak to the doctor on my behalf.  He couldn’t understand Carol’s insistence that there was a patient-doctor confidentiality issue involved, when from what he was observing; his human friend seemed to be dying.  Like a beaver gnawing on a large tree, bite by bite, it eventually tumbles down.  So it was with Carol.  In tears she shared with Elex everything she knew about the progression of my condition and the ultimate outcome.  “Don’t worry, Carol.  Everything will work out.  You’ll see.”  After that, no one saw Elex for a couple of weeks.

Lise was off to reserves training and I was alone when the knock sounded on the door.  There stood Elex.  “I’ve got something I want to show you, man.  Come on.”  And he turned on his heals and headed towards the street.

“Elex, where the hell have you been?”  He paid me no mind.  I went on.  “Elex, I don’t know if you noticed but I’m not dressed,” I yelled after him as he walked out to the street.

“I’ll wait in the car.”  And with that, he opened the door to a brand new Land Rover, hopped in and made himself comfortable.  It was tiring dressing after a long day, but I didn’t want to give Elex anything to be concerned about.  I passed the mirror and took in the skeleton I was becoming.  I shook my head, took several deep breaths and slowly made my way to his recent acquisition.  Cars were really selling cheap these days.  We all lived so close together, that it was odd that Elex would even need transportation.  But we didn’t stop at his place.  In fact, we drove to a part of town with which I was unfamiliar and that was saying something considering it was my town.

“Elex, what are we doing out here?” I questioned.

“I told you, Warren, there's something I want to show you.”  And with that, he pulled into a driveway and activated a garage door opener.  We parked inside.

“So, you're going to show me your new house.  How nice, Elex.  Now take me back to my place.  But first, where are you getting power for this place?”

“A portable generator supplies the power and it’s not my new house.  Just be patient and you’ll see what I have to show you.”  Elex knew I wasn't really a drinking man, but he had cold beer in a fridge.  One could hardly hurt.  Doctor Manning would probably disagree, but how could I refuse anyway.  I hadn’t had one in weeks.

“So, where is it, Elex?”  I glanced around the room.  All that was there was a large screen TV.  This is it, he said gleefully.  And hit another remote, turning on a DVD.  The screen lit up and there was one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies from years past.   I was enjoying myself, perhaps too much, as Elex was slipping me beer after beer, until I was barely conscious.   I really didn’t tolerate alcohol very well.

Elex had a black object on the table beside him about the size of one of the paper writing cubes that people give to one another when they can’t find anything else for a birthday or Christmas present.  He was hooking up wires to it that had electrodes on the other ends.  “O God!” I thought, “It’s his old N’davalite self coming back. We’re all doomed.”  I tried to raise myself up, but I was either strapped down, or just didn’t have the strength to do so.

“Don’t worry buddy.  I’m here to help.  I’ll have you as good as new in no time.”

I felt pressure on my temples as Elex pressed the electrodes against my skin.  It began to get dark.  “The power’s going out, Elex.  You better check the gas in the generator,” I said as the room went completely black.