TRAVELOGUE

Image: Grace Shared: Personal Recall Prompt, Designer Ana Yanes

I’m about to go on a journey that I didn’t know I was going to go on, which is odd for someone who frequently travels. True, I have boarded flights last-minute, on a whim of fancy or escape, injury, or a necessity of dire realities. Still, in general, I know where I am going and when I am leaving, except for this particular evening when the innocence of not knowing, the lack of awareness of an extremely gullible personality trait; a trait my son loathes in me happened upon me, ever-so loudly that I was mystified and terrified in the same moment until there was only terror.

Fear has not been a large part of my life; friends, in general, are gob-smacked by my ability to simply get up and go. Traveling alone is second nature to me. I’ve driven across the US on my own. I embark on most non-violent, non-English speaking places with ease. However, I will say that this unique journey altered something in me. My entire body was consumed with a raw fear; an alive, uncontrollable, horror. There was no soothing friendship to be made on this journey with my whacked-out nervous system or escalating heartbeat. There was only the heavy scent of honey locust blossoms lingering in flight that encouraged the living. Nice try, honey locusts. Raw fear answers to no one, even under the spell of a thick honey locust scent. Fasten your seatbelt.

As they say, the only way through is through. For those of you who don’t know, I am highly Scorpionic; consequently, I believe privacy is a divine right, secrets are to be hidden only to be shared, well, shared in privacy, but not now. This journey stretched my secret self to share and to share large.

I live with an amazingly rare vasculitis. One in five million people are diagnosed with this ‘invisible disease’. My specialty MD at Johns Hopkins once explained it to me nearly fifteen years ago like this: “It’s like a leukemia, in your case with a dual organs, the heart and lungs involved, which when this rare Churg-Strauss Syndrome (CSS)  erupts, it opts to close down your participating organs; the organs that have been compromised in your case are the aforementioned, which, he continued,  having two organs involved makes this syndrome even more rare.” As for the other few diagnosed with this insidious syndrome, it is usually one in about a million, with only one organ involved. I am special in this regard, unique and rare, having two.

Note, this is a backstory presented to objectify the journey as . . . I’ll let you readers decide.

The journey in Lisboa was hot, but hot with a cool Atlantic breeze in the evening is divine if you ask me. I was not sweating, I was not overheated, nor did I have low blood sugar. There was a bit of vertigo early in flight, but oh god, please not that, as soon as I felt it come on, I did my trusted exercises. The vertigo eased up a bit; however, as my travel continued, my jaw began to feel numb on both sides. Should I try to speak? Yes, I try speaking out loud. I am traveling alone. My words are slurring. My heart is pounding loud and fast. What is happening?

Continuing, I find my phone and call a friend. It must be 9 or 10 PM, not an uncomplicated time for most to pick up, but I have one very badass friend as I travel through Lisboa. She answers and believes in my travels; I have succumbed to heat stroke. She tells me to chill. I try. My heart is racing so hard that I believe I am having a very bad CSS flare, which I am convinced (given all the medical data) is going to lead to a stroke or a heart attack. My body is shaking furiously.  I feel jolts of electricity running through my limbs. If you touched me, surely you would be shocked. All the while, I keep feeling as if I have been poisoned. I did get stung by a bee, but that was days ago. What about that thorn I stepped on?

I call my dear badass friend back and tell her I need to go to the hospital; she finds me traveling and determinedly appears with Coke-a-Cola. No part of me wants to drink them. Somehow, she interrupts the travel plans and gets me into Bolt (note, not Uber) to a private hospital in Lisboa, supposedly the best one; they speak English.

The check-in process is lengthy and strategic.  I am given a wristband that says my emergency is second to the highest. OK. Given my American experiences with ERs and hospitals (there have been many), I expected to be admitted and immediately hooked up to IVs and O2. Not so. I was methodically taken from one station to the next, long, chilling hours before I met with an English-speaking MD. At which point my only rational thoughts were, dear god, please, I do not want to die in a hospital in Lisbon, will someone please draw blood to see what my troponin levels are, and why, no matter how much water I drink, is my mouth so dry? My badass friend hands me chewing gum.

Ultimately, I see the ER MD and my friend gives her a dose of her badassery for making me wait so long under my dire circumstances. The MD takes my blood pressure, and she calmly tries to feign her fright, but cannot and gasps, “OMG, 194/110. Let’s check the other arm.”  To which my terror replies, “NO! I need my troponin levels checked, now,” I mutter a in a please. She checks my blood pressure on my other arm, and it’s the same. Sheer terror.

Hours after waiting, I am now sent to the ER room and hooked up to an IV. I tell my friend to leave, but she will leave her phone on. Per usual, no one can find my veins, “just use the veins in my hand,” I mumble, pointing to my hands. They nod, make a messy entrance into a bright blue vein in my hand.

The muscle relaxers begin to kick in; their job is to prevent the possibility of an oncoming stroke. I’m told by the MD that it is going to be an hour before the lab releases my troponin levels. Jesus. I have to pee, but given a large amount of drugs, I can’t move. My thoughts remind me that, for a CSS patient, of late, I have been doing ‘so well’ and with that thought, I begin to bend time by blending with the spirals I have taught myself to see everywhere. Spirals I remember, resolve conflict; maybe they will resolve mine.

When the returning MD gently taps on my shoulder, the spirals disappear while she informs me that my troponin levels are normal.  She continues, “We think you are having a very bad panic attack.”

“Panic attack with these symptoms?” I question. She nods her head yes. Disbelieving, I explain I have never had a panic attack like this, didn’t she think perhaps I am having a huge CSS flare, allergic reaction, or something of that sort? “I can still feel the electricity running through me despite the IV meds,” I exclaim. “No, she assures me, you rest, and we will keep an eye on you all night,” she smiles. I think after I pee, I can rest. Wheelchair to the bathroom.

I ask for blankets; my mind begins to once again trace my travelogue. No part of me believes this is a panic attack. My mystic self reminds me: answers come with ease (as does much of everything else in this life). Ease up, ignore the electric currents, you are not going to die echoes through my gut. Eyes now closed, traveling, my mind drifts through the cosmos, and mid-flight, I am presented with the lucid image of a resplendent, perfectly squared raspberry pate de fruits. One of my favorite French confections that I was surprised to find hours earlier in a small, slightly used Tupperware container in the fridge of my friend’s penthouse, with that find, a delight crept over me, and without a care in the world, I freely popped it into my mouth. The image of the square floated to the front of my hospital-soaked brain, making its presence crystal clear that my journey was drenched in an alternative substance. My one free arm reached for my phone and the best I could sent a text to my friend. Was the pate des fruits in your fridge laced with strong THC?

Leaving the hospital early the next morning, wobbly sea legs, foggy, and WTF happened, with copious amounts of electricity still roving through me, I received my reply; it was a mushroom gummy. Psilocybin.

“Did I eat the entire square?” “Yes,” I sigh. “I am Charlotte from the Sex and the City spin-off we watched last Saturday, the episode in which she ate one of her kid’s brownies and ended up in the hospital,” I answered. Except, instead of THC, this was a mushroom gummy, no wonder I kept saying I felt like I’d been poisoned, I was. The mushrooms played their part, traveling to aggravating and exacerbating my weakest link -my heart and lungs. Given my daily concoction of meds for CSS, hospital meds, and the mushroom gummy, there was a war going on inside of me, and my heart objected as loudly as was physically possible before it was tempted to shut down.

The side effects and bodily stress of this journey lasted for days and even for weeks as the electric currents pumped through my veins.

Some say had I known what was happening, I could have at least enjoyed my journey and ‘made use’ of it,doubtful is generally my response. The absolute panic coupled with the terror of not knowing my journey was laced with for many is pleasure shifted something inside of me, and fingers crossed it is to be less gullible (making my son proud). Furthermore, CSS is its own beast, and I am, after all, a medical miracle, intending to remain so and not tempt fate.

The next day, I asked my dear friend what I could do for her to express my gratitude for getting me to the hospital. Dinner? Massage? Horseback riding? What would she like?

“Could I please get one of those gummies?” she answered.

*Travelogue note:  Ask before you eat something out of a friend’s fridge.