“The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget!" "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it.”
The night of January 29th I got a shaking-chill fever. I had had these episodes a number of times since November, 2011 when I had liver transplant number four. However, this time I was on a triple-drug therapy for hep-C. One of the drugs, interferon, has complex effects on the immune system, both boosting response to the hep-C virus but suppressing other immune responses. Meg and I realized I needed to go immediately to the hospital. Rather than have her take me, I asked her to call an ambulance.
At UNM I was put in the ICU. Despite being in the place for the most seriously ill patients, the attending physician didn't appreciate the severity of my illness. My kidney's had shut down, my blood pressure was dangerously low, my breathing labored. In Meg's medical parlance, I was circling the drain. She was able to get Mayo, Jacksonville to take me as a transfer. By the time the arrangements were made, I was on a ventilator set to Max and "max pressors" to keep my blood pressure up. Mayo warned Meg that it was dangerous to transport me, that I could very well die in transit. She realized that unless I got to Mayo there was no hope. At Mayo a team of six doctors and nurses worked on me continuously for three hours. It took the work of a brillant doctor at Mayo thirty-sic hours to stabilize me.
All this I was to learn much later. The purpose of this memoir is to record what I experienced. After entering UNM, I remember Meg telling me that they wanted to put me on a ventilator. I had expressed my fear of dying this way as a "fate worse than death" many times in the past. She told me to do it for David (our youngest child, then 14). After this I descended into coma/delirium. Why record these bizarre hallucinations? If you are reading this, I must confess it is entirely as personal psychic therapy. I know of no other way to get them out of my head than to write them down.
All this I was to learn much later. The purpose of this memoir is to record what I experienced. After entering UNM, I remember Meg telling me that they wanted to put me on a ventilator. I had expressed my fear of dying this way as a "fate worse than death" many times in the past. She told me to do it for David (our youngest child, then 14). After this I descended into coma/delirium. Why record these bizarre hallucinations? If you are reading this, I must confess it is entirely as personal psychic therapy. I know of no other way to get them out of my head than to write them down.
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