I have an acquaintance who survived the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. By his very good fortune he was on a lower level of one of the buildings having breakfast that day. Only once did I ask him to tell me his story. He told me of running down stairs and as far away from Ground Zero as fast as possible. He told me of racing away as panes of glass and human bodies fell around him. He told me he was unscarred physically and emotionally. He knew he was a very fortunate man.
That was thirteen years ago. As time went on I made it my habit to send him a short email each September 11th: Happy Celebration of Life it reads. There is not need to elaborate on anything else. He knows exactly what those four words mean to him.
Over the years he's always responded, not always addressing the email directly. He tells what´s happening around him and the fact that he recently married and that life in general is pretty darn good.
And so it is today, January 18th, that I have come to observe my own Happy Celebration of Life.
Three years ago this morning my body was critically ill. For every liter of water going in, two liters was coming out. I'd not eaten much in days and the very thought of food was making me nauseous. I'd lost 15 pounds in less than a week. By early that morning, I knew something was terribly wrong.
I´d been sick for days and my first visit to my doctor curbed back the initial symptoms—a bit. On Day three, for whatever reason, Steve was home from school and we were Skyping I could barely get out of bed and he had to encourage me to get moving, take a shower, get dressed. He stayed with me the whole time. “Put on socks,” he'd tell me. “And now a shirt.” It was terrible. I can only imagine how powerless he felt. Then I called a taxi and went to the doctor.
But by day six I knew was even sicker.
It isn't often I reach out for help. It's not my nature, anymore than it's the nature of many people. Had my landlady been around I would have reached out to her, but she'd flown to LA that morning. Instead, I contacted the Mexico City daughter-in-law of a woman I knew from home. We'd met the year before and she and her husband told me that if I ever needed anything I was to ask.
Well...I needed something, and I needed it in a very big way. I sent her an email, and because the world has become flat, she picked it up in Boston. It took her no time to contact her husband in Mexico who in turn contacted his secretary and his driver. Maria called me immediately and told me that Marco, who I'd also met the year before, was on his way. Every few minutes she'd make contact with me just to make sure I was OK.
Ninety minutes later I was in the Emergency Room of Hospital Angeles in Interlomas, way outside of the City's center. The doctor spoke good English and between his English and my Spanish we got by. He suspected, as I did, giardia. I was immediately given intravenous hydration as I'd lost a lot of liquid. I assume I was given meds in the ER for the infection.
“We suspect more,” he told me, “ And we'd like you to spend the night.” Thus followed more blood and stool samples. I was totally compliant. There was no question that this was out of my hands. I was just glad to be cared for.
While I was waiting in my apartment I'd sent emails to my aunt and to Kathy Crighton, my pastor. “I'm very sick,” I told them. “Please keep me in prayer.” I do not know what transpired on their end, but I do know that their prayers, and the prayers of others, helped me get through this drama.
Within a few hours of being in the hospital I began to feel better. My body was seriously dehydrated and the flagyl, which I just hate, was kicking in.
I spent the day communicating with home, setting up a series of credit cards to pay for this. I had no idea what it would cost, and I didn't care. I would pay anything to get better.
The next day I just hung around. I had phone calls and a visitor. My friend, Gerardo, whose birthday it was, made the long trip out to see me. He snuck in a can of Diet Coke, which I wasn´t allowed to have. I was able to walk with my IV's hanging off a bag. I brought him downstairs and bought him a piece of cake at Starbucks. “Feliz cumpleaños” I sang. I still had no appetite, but I could at least wish him well.
That afternoon the good doctor visited again. Not only did I have giardia, but e-coli and salmonella as well. I was given more meds. And I was also visited by a small team of very well spoken English speaking interns who queried me at length as to where I picked up this triad of diseases.
I will never know. No one I'd eaten with had gotten sick. I'd only been in the country five days before my first symptoms emerged. I was absolutely no help to them and they had every right to be concerned. This was serious stuff. At home it would hit the local news.
I have often thought of the source of these bacterium. It could be as benign as wiping my mouth after using the railing of the metro. I will never know.
Two days later, still weak but disease-free, I was released, but I hardly had my strength back. It would take a full week for some appetite to return and even longer to feel myself again. But throughout the winter I was never really well. I'd lost 15 pounds from the start of this sickness, but by early May I'd lost 27!
Once home, my local doctor re-diagnosed giardia. Apparently the infection was strong enough that the ten day regimen of antibiotic didn't kill it all. I was given another round of flagyl and by the beginning of the summer I was fully well—and much thinner. Some good things come out of illnesses.
***
I have thought many times of the event from three years ago; I have always been beyond grateful and appreciative that Scott and Amy, the local connection from Platttsburgh, were there for me and that they cared enough to get me to the hospital. I will always love them for what they did,
I have honestly wondered what would have happened if they had not stepped forward. Three years ago I did not know Mexico City the way I do now.
I have never, nor will I ever, lose my appreciation for Pastor Kathy and my Aunt Gloria for the prayer team they set up. My recovery was not just the work of medicine, although I knew they worked in conjunction with God's grace.
Since that event, I have learned two things that expand what really was happening that day. One was shortly after I arrived home and someone I know well commented on my weight loss. When I told her the story, she simply said...”Your body was shutting down to die.”
And more recently, in a breach of privacy that is another story altogether, I learned that my case was the worst the good doctor had ever seen—and he'd been in practice for more than 25 years.
I am so grateful that I didn't know those things three years ago today. I would have been hysterical. As things played out that day, I never could use the word “drama” to describe any of it. I was sick. I called out for help. I went to the ER. I was treated. I got well. I was released.
It's only now do I realize that there was a great deal of drama going on that day. I could have died, but before that my organs would have shut down. It was already happening. Had I lived, I could be in very bad health.
People have often said told me that it wasn’t my time to go, and they are right. For whatever reason God still has a purpose for me. I do not know what that is, and I may never know. What I do know today, and I knew three three years ago, is that there was a divine component to this incident that pulled me through and got me well.
I have never lost an attitude of thanksgiving—for my family, my friend, for Scott and Amy, for Dr. Tache and for my Creator who had other plans for me three years ago.
It is only in the past year that I have really come to know how seriously ill I was and how January 18th, 2012 could have had a very different outcome. I´t could easily have been a very grave day indeed.
And so this is is my 9/11, my celebration of life. I didn't dodge panes of glass or falling bodies, but I did dodge mortality in my own way.
So I write these words with the deepest humility I know, and I give eternal thanks to those who were with me that day--to those who reached out, to those who cared locally, to those who prayed for me from afar. You who read this today... you must know, must know from the depth of my heart, that I will always love you for it and always give thanks for what you did.
And for me...Happy Celebration of Life, Dan. Happy Celebration of Life!
