My little sister had meningitis at age 3 and spent 40 days in a coma. That explains a lot, or so the family story goes.
At that same age, but years and years earlier, I had had polio and although you can’t really tell by looking at me, I have every spine curvature known to man. Then, in my early 20s, I had not 1, not 2, not 3, but 6 spontaneous pneumothoraxes, a couple of them perfectly timed with the holiday season, so I could spend Christmas in the hospital (with my mother staying in an adjacent room, for her own reasons, keep reading).
On the subject of my mother … well, she has had health issues all her life, mostly with both her legs, courtesy of a doctor who, back in the days, was very well renowned and a complete crook. After spending as much as a year in a body cast on several occasions, undergoing tons of operations and in constant pain, my mother developed a life-threatening infection and had to have her left leg amputated. Just to give you a graphic idea, when we were flying from Brasilia to Montevideo for her amputation I had to hold her leg on take off cause it was coming off … not joking. No bone left to hold it together. And I’ll spare you the details of the bit by bit amputation, going higher and higher on her leg. I'll also spare you the details of me cleaning the hole on her leg from where you could see the bone. I am lucky, or maybe just trained by circumstances, but I can take a good amount of gore without flinching. I actually find it interesting.On top of the reality of my mother's health problems, with time she has also assumed a professional sick individual persona. Sickness is what she does, who she is. And I will never get used to that.
As for my father, who was mostly healthy all his life, except for your run-of-the-mill ulcer (though he got to spend so much time in hospitals with my mother that he got discounted meals at the doctor’s cafeteria and was called “Doctor” by the staff), as he got older he seemed extremely dedicated to finding a way out (I am absolutely convinced there was a part of him that had just lived enough and dreaded the future that was coming at him): in two years he went from perfect health to heart problems, then he tried lung cancer and not happy with that he got pancreatic cancer. Mercifully, he died from a heart attack way before that sucker could get nasty.
On my in-laws side: my ex-husband had a heart attack and got quintuple bypass coronary surgery at age 35, 5 years after we married. One bypass per year of marriage, or so he put it. Since then he has got stents and another bypass surgery he barely made it out of. Oh, and the anesthesia did not work that time, so if you want a blow by blow of a thoracic surgery from the patient's perspective, he’s the guy to talk to.
My mother in law was okay until she developed a bad case of Chron’s disease. To top it off she is at this very moment in the hospital, recovering from a triple bypass and a new valve. To make the most out of the occasion she had a stroke while under. She's right handed so, obviously, is her right side that's paralyzed.
My sister in law spent most of her life with kidney infections that made it necessary for her to receive a kidney transplant. She also has heart problems. Now she has developed a tumor on her one and only transplanted kidney and needs surgery. That’s why I am at JFK now, waiting to my flight to Madrid
Oh, and one of my nieces has quite an extreme celiac disease … and it goes on and on … we do have other health issues besides those mentioned and I am not expanding this medical history to friends and extended family.
Well, this post started in my mind as an explanation of why I am going to Madrid again, but then I thought it would be more fun to unload the whole picture.
Also, I was going to end it with a “I am fine, thanks!” but then my back spasmed and I fainted and I busted my face, you know, yada yada yada … happy New Year!
