I sat up bolt upright in bed, very afraid.
It was around 1 am—not that I knew it at the time—and I’d gone to sleep a few hours earlier feeling pretty normal, other than a little run-down. I don’t recall what I though I was afraid of, if anything. Perhaps a nightmare. I tried to calm myself down, and considered and rejected waking Jennifer, asleep beside me. Immediately, my arm shot out and roughly shook her awake. I had no reaction to doing the opposite of what I’d decided, but thought only that I’d been a bit rough. I began trying to explain to her what the problem was, but each time I began to speak, after a few words I spoke words that were not those I intended. My reaction to this was not of concern; I merely tried again, over and over.
I was suddenly overwhelmed by the most intense, burning smell. It was to strong that it was utterly debilitating; I could do nothing else until the smell was removed. I faintly knew that the smell was not real, but I still frantically fanned my hand in front of my face and gave Jennifer my pillow to test-smell. The smell was so strong it was almost painful, and it was the closest thing to pain I felt that night.
All this took only a few minutes. Until that point, I had been aware that I was doing and saying things that I did not attend, even if my reactions were not what I would normally expect. But from then I lost even that awareness and was just along for the ride, fully in it. My memory also was mostly lost after that, with only brief scenes cut together:
Saul arrives to take me to the local hospital (only two minutes from my house). He looks at me in a way I cannot identify. Perhaps it is a mixture of fatigue, concern, and puzzlement.
I am in the passenger seat of Saul’s SUV. He is buckling my seatbelt.
We are driving down my long driveway.
We are walking into the hospital. I am following Saul, who has a momentary confusion about where the emergency room is.
The doctor is standing in front of me, looking at me. He shrugs, at a loss.
They are looking for someone to ride escort in the ambulance to take me to a larger hospital in Lismore. One of the emergency room nurses volunteers. They call the ward looking for someone to replace her in Emergency.
The doctor is putting a canula (needle with a connector stub) into a vein in my arm, in case they need to get something into me in a hurry.
They are loading me into the ambulance. I am strapped to a stretcher.
The ambulance is going around a long right curve and accelerating. Onto the highway?
I am very afraid. I look at the roof of the ambulance and try to calm myself.
…
I opened my eyes as a long tube was removed from my throat. Jennifer was holding my hand, looking loving, concerned, and relieved. I knew that I was in hospital in Lismore, and that time had passed if Jennifer was already there, as it is a 45-minute drive and she would have had to arrange for the care of the kids.
I could not recall the name of my son. In fact, I couldn’t recall almost anyone’s name.
I gradually felt around my body and discovered four IVs, a bandage on my spine, a tube up my nose, and a catheter. Ugh.
I also couldn’t recall the name of any local towns other than the one I live in (Mullumbimby), Byron Bay, and the one I was in, Lismore. The next day it took me several seconds of effort to recall my mother’s name. The day after that it took ten hours of intermittent effort to recall my mother-in-law’s name, in which time I was able—with effort—to recall the names of everyone in her family that occurred to me.
I was soon able to recall the names of the local towns, with the exception of the one in which the ambulance had been passing when I lost consciousness. For several days that was intermittent.
The first night a male nurse came in and said that he’d give me a shower later. The next night he came in and apologized for not having done so. He overestimated my level of consciousness somewhat, I think. He removed the tube from my nose, which went into my stomach. I felt it coming all the way up and it left me sputtering. He also removed the catheter. Fortunately, I was too out of it to defend myself. He then helped me into a wheelchair and wheeled me into to room’s bathroom, where there was a shower with a chair. He helped me into that, got the water going and left me to it. I was pretty much able to manage, although I could not have arisen. He came back and gave me a lice treatment, saying that they had found knits in my hair while checking me (thoroughly) for tick bites. I do not have lice!
Over time, people filled in some gaps. I had given some random name when asked at the local hospital. That tells me that I was able to understand that I was being addressed, that I was being asked a question, and that the required response is a name. The doctor, unable to get anything from me, called Jennifer and asked—three times—if I was on drugs. He was incredulous when told that I don’t use any. “Not even marijuana?” No, mate, beer does me at this stage. I had passed out in the ambulance, had a grand mal seizure, and stopped breathing. The escort nurse was unable to deal with this and so the driver pulled over by the side of the highway and worked for some time to get me going again, with poor Saul looking on. After that the ambulance took off going flat-out. Once in the hospital they treated me for every conceivable thing that could cause my symptoms while they kept me in an artificial coma and worked to make a diagnosis. I had recently had an embarrassing incident in the bank where I somehow managed to bang my head on a brick wall while bending over to throw some trash into a bin. (It occurs to me as I write this that I might now know why I did that, as loss of balance has been an issue.) The scrape had the doctors worried that I had a subdural hematoma (clotting under the skull but external to the brain.) and so had sent me for a CAT scan which revealed nothing. They tested for spinal meningitis which required that they obtain cerebral spinal fluid from my spine. They also tested that fluid for herpetic encephalitis (the herpes virus in the brain). Both tests came back negative, but the herpes test generally does if done too close to the onset, so they continued to treat for it pending an MRI, which they could not do while I was on life support as they needed to transport me to a nearby hospital for it.
After two nights in intensive care they transferred me to the ward in the middle of the night. That day, they sent for me for the MRI and as I was a risk for a repeat performance they wanted an emergency room nurse to accompany me in the back. I recognized the guy who showed up, fully equipped for anything. I knew I knew him from Mullum, somewhere. It was very nice to see a familiar face and I chatted with him on the way. The MRI was intense; claustrophobic and very, very loud. It showed a lesion in my right temporal lobe, the area which handles names, memory, time. The accompanying radiologist’s report suggested herpes encephalitis, and as the cerebral spinal fluid test was done early, this became the working diagnosis.
and four in the ward and they sent me home.