I’m in a foul mood. Grouchy. Unfit for human consumption.
I shouldn’t be, as I’m in the bustling, beautiful Silver Lake neighborhood in my favorite city—Los Angeles—waiting to see one of my favorite people. I’m drinking a latte, squinting against the sun, bracing against the wind, and trying to unclench after an afternoon of left turns.
You know what that is, right? If you’ve ever been to a city like L.A. or Chicago that really doesn’t do left turn lanes, and every place you want to go is to the left, you know.
It’s the first bad mood I’ve experienced since last Tuesday when I nearly died.
There was no panic. No blood or guts. No screaming ambulance. In their absence, it’s difficult to consider how close I came.
The scare was the end of a chain of events that really makes very little sense. I now see so many ways it could have been avoided, but to what end? I’m fine now. I was fine as soon as I got medical intervention. I can only really think of this in a timeline, so here it is:
March 9: After having my usual St. Louis-induced stuffy sinuses, a sharp pain developed in my right ear. A heating pad helped. So did Sudafed and ibuprofen. I didn’t rush to do anything about it.
March 10: After work, I decided to go to urgent care. I had a house concert the next night and was taking a little road trip with a friend a few days later. Better safe than sorry. Except when I arrived at the clinic they weren’t accepting patients because their computer system was down. I could have gone to another clinic, but it was 5:00 on Friday afternoon. Who wants to deal with that?
March 11-24: My ear didn’t hurt, but felt like it was full of fluid. Every day I considered returning to the clinic, and every day I found reasons to not go. I felt fine, never developed a fever, and just didn’t want the hassle. After the past year, I’m just over being in a medical setting.
March 25: I realized I would be getting on a plane in a week, and doing so with fluid in my ear would suck, so finally, I went back to the clinic. The computers were up and I was seen by a nurse practitioner who calmly diagnosed me with a tear in my tympanic membrane. I googled while she wrote prescriptions and, holy shit, that’s just a less scary way of saying “ruptured eardrum.” She prescribed antibiotic drops for my ears, which is standard for the affliction, and also antibiotic eyedrops because my left eye was bloodshot and itchy.
March 25-28: Taking drops and worrying about long-term hearing damage. Having regrets about years of loud music at shows and through headphones. I made an appointment with an ENT.
March 27: Everything itches. My back, arm, leg, torso, hands. But it’s early spring so I chalked it up to the last of the winter dry skin.
March 28: I snuck out of work for a waxing appointment and to get a coffee. Walking back into the house I felt a little lethargic and slightly winded. This isn’t unusual, since I’m still getting back in shape post-surgeries. I went to my desk, clawing at the itch on my inner right forearm. While scratching, I caught my sweater sleeve and saw a fresh burst of hives. My torso also itched, so I lifted my shirt and found another raging patch of red bumps on my stomach. I could feel their crawling growth on my thigh and back.
I recently started a new antidepressant that’s been damn near miraculous in its results. But my doctor prescribed it with trepidation, as it contains a component that once sent me into a very bad mental place. Thinking that maybe this time it was just making me break out, I googled. No mention of hives, even in the worst reaction. Psychosis? Yes. But not hives.
Then I remember the antibiotics.
But I’ve never had a reaction to antibiotics. Knee replacement is one of the high infection risks in the surgical world, so I was pumped full of them. For the rest of my life, anytime I have medical procedures or get tattooed, I have to take a giant dose of antibiotics. Which I did a few weeks ago when I got my Jello mold tramp stamp in New Orleans. When CJ was born I developed a staph infection that was antibiotic-resistant, even.
I googled the antibiotics I was taking and, in huge letters, was informed that hives are very, very bad.
So I called the nurseline through my insurance company. I didn’t feel very, very bad. Just itchy.
The nurse heard the wheeze in my voice before I felt it and told me to get to the emergency room immediately. Call an ambulance.
I didn’t. Brian gave me a ride. By the time I arrived, I could feel my throat closing.
They checked me in and told me to have a seat.
But then they took my vitals, and my blood oxygen saturation was down to 96 percent. The nurse didn’t mention this, but I saw the number. And I know that anything below 95 is not good.
They had me take a seat again. But not for long. I was taken to a room reserved for allergic reactions, and an IV line was placed among the hives on my forearm. The RN injected steroids and antihistamines into the line by hand before sending me to take care of the business of payment, then off for a breathing treatment, nursing popping in every few minutes to check on me.
And then I went home. From hives to home in about an hour. A no muss, no fuss near-death experience.
I didn’t have time to consider what was happening, as it was happening. Not once did I think, “I am actively dying right now”
I still don’t feel like I almost died. I know how close I came. On one hand, I was stable the entire time, since I got treatment so fast. I didn’t require a shot of adrenaline.
The other hand? I would have sat down at my desk, working and scratching, until I collapsed.
I might have made some bad decisions, but I made one good one. Eventually. Just in time. Which is pretty much how I go about my life in the first place.
The kicker: I went to the ENT the next day and found out my eardrum wasn’t perforated in the first place. I just had the dregs of sinus gunk. I didn’t need the antibiotics in the first place.
I can’t say that I feel any sort of revelatory changes in myself, knowing that I had a glancing brush with death. I’m 50 and probably should have had one or two by now. Instead, I’ve opted for goofy-ass injuries that require expensive repairs, hare-brained near-misses, and bouts of letting my brain convince me that life isn’t all that great in the first place.
I’ve felt goodness this week, in an outpouring of love from all directions, which I appreciate. Going to L.A. so close to the scare at first felt like a tremendous way to celebrate a new lease on life, but instead, I’m grouchy. Sitting outside a chain coffeehouse where the wind is freezing cold in the shade, wondering if I’ll hear from the friend I’m waiting to hear from, or if I’ve managed to waste yet another incredible day of my life in a place that usually fills my soul but today is nothing but left turns. And I’m burning time, burning money, burning.
Across the street from where I sit, there’s a women’s health clinic. A mural of a woman embracing a flower instructs me to breathe. And I can. My lungs fill deep and full with this powerful wind that gusts over Los Angeles after months of rain. I have a spot, a parking space, money for another coffee, and the power and privilege to do whatever I damn well please. Stopping to breathe? I did that on Tuesday.
Today, I burn.