Meningitis - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 12/20/2011 2:00 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
I have written about my ordeal with Meningitis before in the context of it happening during my days of operating a lawn service business back in Texas. But the experience was so significant to my life it deserves a stand-alone vignette. It certainly falls in to the category of one of the top ten most dangerous experiences in my life.
At the end of my first year totally on my own in business, a bomb dropped on my head. No pun intended; I acquired Meningitis. It was basically misdiagnosed at first by a local doctor down the street from my shop. To his credit the illness was unheard of in 1990. It was an old-world illness, but was making a come back Down South. A friend of mine got Tuberculosis as well a couple years before - another old-world illness making a come back. It was only luck that I retreated for a second opinion at the Veterans' Hospital (VA) for help.
In regards to the old-world analogy, once my mom and her cronies heard I had Meningitis, they pretty much wrote me off as dead. Even to this day in many cases, but especially back at the early part of the 1900s and earlier, it was a death sentence.
I remember taking on a project at an old house in Oak Cliff which was a borough of Dallas. There was old lumber piled everywhere, the place was a mess. We were to knock down the tall weeds. There were mosquitos and other nefarious critters everywhere.
I am not sure I acquired the illness at that location, but it is one of the last things I remember doing before falling ill. I began to get an excruciating head ache. The weekend was upon us and I went to the indoor arena football game that night with a couple of my workers. I was beginning to get a nagging headache, something I rarely got. I even got sick after eating an order of nacho chips and cheese served on the consummate sports event paper dish, a concession stand treat I have always loved. The next day Heide and I were to meet her parents in Tyler, Texas, to see all the famous flowers of the region. My back and legs were now also in excruciating pain. I was in such pain, my mother-in-law became distressed and told me to get back to Dallas and get to a doctor.
On Monday I headed to a local doctor down from my shop. He was concerned of course, yet suggested I get to a hospital for a more thorough examination. He was not sure what the hell was going on. He thought perhaps I had just gotten too much Texas sun and extreme heat.
Not having comprehensive health insurance as a small business person, Heide got me to the Veterans' Hospital. The VA Doc had been overseas at one time and knew of such awful sicknesses. He diagnosed me before I hit the cot.
While at the hospital I found out there were basically two types of Meningitis - Viral and Bacterial. Bacterial is still a certain death sentence to this day. As it turned out, I had Viral. The VA Docs matter-of-factly informed me that if I had had Bacterial, I never would have seen the end of the arena football game the same day the first symptoms appeared - it kills you just that quick.
Regardless, Viral Meningitis is dangerous enough and if untreated it also will kill. I remember having several spinal taps. That is one of the worst medical procedures I have ever endured. They seek to examine the fluid around the spine and brain. If indeed infected, the fluid causes the pain in the brain and spine.
After spending three weeks in the VA, I thought hard about the coming Spring. It was the beginnings of my crusade to get back to Wisconsin again.
Nowadays, universities encourage their students to get vaccinated against Meningitis. It seems to haunt young adults in environments of close proximity like colleges. Of course no vaccine or even the culture of awareness was available back when I got sick as a..., young adult.
For years after I survived the ordeal I could not eat much meat at all. It just repulsed me. The doctors never would comment on the phenomena, just saying I should be glad I am alive.
And, it took ten years for me to even be able to look at an order of nachos and cheese.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
