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.
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