Respite and Recovery

I have been at home now for about four weeks, and every day my stamina and thought processes seem to improve. The insurance company arranged for a weekly home nurse visit and a physical therapist twice a week which has vastly improved my condition. I can now walk about 200 yards, and I no longer feel dizzy each time I stand, although I periodically have moments when I do feel a bit light headed, especially when I leave out the front door for my walks around the yard. Somehow gazing out at the spectacular Catalina Mountains to the north disorients me somewhat and it takes a moment to steady myself.

All this time I have only left the house once, to visit my primary care doctor about three days after I was discharged from the hospital. This was not as difficult as it seemed since the clinic arranged for an Uber driver and, once the visit was over, the nurses themselves gave me a ride back home. How’s that for service! The rest of the time I have spent doing the many exercises that the physical therapist has taught me, watching television, and reading. Lately I have felt well enough to help with some household chores like the dishes and taking out the trash, too.

One thing a serious illness will teach its victims, I would hope, is a sense of gratitude for things we often take for granted. The beauty of a fall morning in the desert, the night sky with its bright moon and stars, the loving concern of friends and family are all things I now hold so dear. Jayne’s careful nursing of my shattered body has been a godsend, and she monitors my medication with a careful eye. My brother has helped take Jayne to her own doctor appointments and grocery store runs, and our good friends have also pitched in to help with these things. It is quite humbling to consider how dependent we are on such freely given mercies, and again, gratitude is an overpowering emotion when considering our good fortune in this regard.

My brain is working again. I am able to read, which is something during the early days was impossible, and I can follow conversations with ease. This new found clarity has allowed me to reach out to old friends on the telephone and either inform them of what happened to me, or to give them an update. I suppose that is what I am doing with this entry to the blog as well, and I am very glad to be able to compose and post what I feel is a milestone on my way to full recovery.

A Near Death Experience

In early October, I had a dress rehearsal for the final days of my life, and I didn’t like it. A lowly mosquito caused this event, having bitten me after feeding off of some bird that carried the West Nile Virus. Within days, I was suffering muscle aches and pains, headaches, and eventually, complete paralysis which resulted in Jayne’s call to 911 and a visit from the sturdy fellows of the Tucson Fire Department. They stabilized me, called an ambulance, and I took a $1,600 ride to the Tucson Medical Center a mere five blocks from my house.

For the next three days, all became blurred and confused. I lay on an uncomfortable hospital bed with more tubes coming and going from my by then useless body that I care to remember. When at last the fog cleared, there followed more than a week of languishing in that bed, alternately vomiting and feeling the room spin about. Eventually it was complications with my digestion that delayed my discharge home, but once here I find I am so weakened and my brain in such a confused state that I sometimes despair of every fully recovering.

During those first days in the hospital I, along with my family, wondered if I would live, and I was asked by the staff if I wanted to be resuscitated. I said yes, but at the time I almost felt like giving up. I am writing these lines under some pretty severe strain and will stop, but I wanted to at least pass on what I have learned these past four weeks. The mosquito is the most deadly animal on planet Earth, and each one of you needs to take notice. Do not, do not, do not get bit, and take all precautions to prevent it. Believe me, your life may depend on it.

On The Move to On The Road

There are two metropolitan areas of considerable size in Arizona that should not exist. Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the United States, is one of them. Spread out over a vast desert adjacent to the intersection of the mostly dry Salt and Gila rivers, Phoenix has to import much of its water from the Colorado River to sustain its massive population.

Tucson is the second metro area that should not exist, growing from a small Indian village along the banks of the Santa Cruz River in pre-Columbian times to a metro area that spreads out below the Catalina and Rincon mountain ranges to accommodate nearly a million residents. The reason it should not exist is that the Santa Cruz River stopped flowing years ago, and until the Central Arizona Project brought the same Colorado River water to Tucson in 1993 it was the largest city in the United States that depended entirely on ground water. The simple truth is that more water has been pumped out of the ground in Tucson than can ever be replaced, and it is only a matter of time before the desert reclaims its own.

It is this place we have chosen for a home, and in the last four months we have lived here I have often wondered why. We left Bisbee in rather a hurry last April when we were lucky enough to find a cash buyer from our home. Neighbor disputes, an unstable rock wall behind our house, and the steady erosion caused by the drainage subway in front of the place all convinced us that we needed to bail on this little town. Another factor in our decision to leave was the deteriorating infrastructure of Bisbee. There are simply not enough people paying enough taxes to maintain the roads, sewage lines, water lines, and electrical grid. The slow decline of these public necessities would be depressing for anyone considering Bisbee as a home, but I must admit the climate is enough to seduce the most hardened skeptic into giving it a try. Unfortunately for us, the beautiful year-round weather was little comfort during the year we spent in quarantined isolation.

And so we came to Tucson. We found a really nice old adobe home, built in 1947, with red concrete floors and the old fashioned crank-out vertical windows. This historic home is somewhat famous, having been described by author Jack Kerouac in his novel On The Road. This house was owned by a "beat" writer named

Alan Harrington when Kerouac visited in 1949 and he subsequently wrote about it in On The Road. The property came with a wall completely surrounding the house, and a nice little courtyard in the back where we quickly established our shade structures and outdoor shower facility. We live right next to the ruins of Fort Lowell, a military post active during the Apache wars of the nineteenth century. Since it is a historic district, no houses can be built that do not conform to certain design standards and the neighborhood looks like an old Mexican barrio, which it is. We are less than a mile from a supermarket and pharmacy, and to the south of us stands the largest hospital/medical complex in southern Arizona, Tucson Medical Center. Even with all these things so near by, the feel of the place is one of rural living, almost like being way out in the uninhabited desert.

We live in a city that should not be here and adapt as best we can. We make our water work twice: shower runoff goes directly to the trees in the courtyard; dishwater from the kitchen sink gets dumped on the cactus in the front yard, and rinse water from the washing machine is piped via the hose to various plants that look as if they need it. If Tucson is truly doomed, it will likely not happen in our lifetimes and, by being responsible stewards of the water we currently have, we can contribute to the delay of the inevitable.