Lists

So just a slave? I definitely did not think of this when they explained the transition to me.

Mark should show up any minute now — It is almost 2:00, so he needs to learn to get here earlier. The clinic needs him to learn to be regular. Voyager needs him to learn to be prompt. But for now we have plenty of time: four hours a day, three days a week, until he can do it alone. And let me go to Trinity. Maybe I should make this training take a really long time?

LISTS

When I finish my breakfast — I head north to Paradise and Oroville.

I visit Paradise for the reminder. My family did not lose anything to the Camp Fire, but a friend in Napa lost everything but her husband and two cats to the Glass Fire. The fire burned through the area so fast that it simply ‘trimmed the flora’ and the hills are nicer than before the fire. More sunlight. More rattlesnakes. Very pleasant if you have the money and insurance to build back your home. But those less well-off became homeless.

Next I venture over to Oroville and a tavern up by the dam. The parking lot is full of high-torque pickup trucks… and a camouflaged, all-terrain, golf cart.

This is a different type of town from where I had coffee this morning, but there are similarities in religiosity, isolation, and xenophobia. The believers and beliefs have just diverged.

I sit in the back corner booth viewing the whole restaurant and making sure I am visible. “A few months” meanders through my mind.

“What would you like today?” the server asks me.

“The Usual” I say with a smile.

“Sorry, I don’t know what that is” she says looking slightly annoyed.

“I am hoping you will in time” I return with a bigger smile. “I would like an avocado and bacon hamburger. Medium rare” .

An eyebrow is raised, but they simply continue: “What would you like to drink?”

“A ginger ale would be great… if you have it. Otherwise maybe a Coke or Pepsi”

“Coke it is”

I don’t normally eat anything medium rare. But I am out of town and can take off a little bit of my mask if I am careful. Buying a round of beers would probably help to ingratiate me with the town, but that is a bit too conspicuous. It is very unlikely anyone will oversee the way my meat is cooked… although I should change it before it does become “the usual” .

April

“Do you know who you are?” — A nurse or maybe doctor asks.

“I am Mark Fussell”

“What day is it?”

“I don’t know… I think it is in April”

“Who is the president?”

“I believe Biden is president, although I may have missed something interesting while I was ‘ away ’. How long was I away?”

“Where are you?” the nurse or doctor continues, ignoring my question.

“I believe I am in Amasa Hospital. Apparently in an ICU. ”

“And why are you here?”

“I think I was going to die. I was getting weaker and weaker for weeks, and finally my family drove me here. I thought I had a room in ‘M5’ but I don’t seem to be there anymore. “

“Very good. You seem to be mentally recovering well”

Now

The medium rare hamburger — was great!

Any bacteria present wandered into the dark, cold, and perilous biome that is my body. A nightmare alley for both friend and foe.

Over the next two hours I chatted with several people, sometimes in a group. We discussed the water level of the dam. Future weather. Forest fires. Covid vaccinations. Social dissent.

Obviously these are getting to meaty topics, and coming from one of the wealthiest and highest-vaccination-rate counties of the US, this could go sideways very quickly. But I admit I haven’t been vaccinated… I don’t believe masks help me or prevent me from infecting others… and I have had disagreements with the US government. All of these are true statements, but are likely interpreted differently than the details and my real beliefs would support. I also intentionally don’t mention exactly where I live. That plus my bright yellow worker’s jacket seems to help me break through a few layers of the onion that is growing here and inch a little closer to the heart of the rebellion.

With that seed planted, I head back home to the black hole that keeps me alive.

April

The machines and tubes — make more sense to me now. I have a feeding and drug-injection tube. This appears to go all the way down to my stomach or intestines. Nurses play with that a few times a day to give me drugs, and the feeding tube is pumping almost continuously. I also have a trialysis catheter inserted into my neck, which enables something called dialysis along with other things. Apparently dialysis is replacing my kidneys… which have decided not to work anymore. I also have tubes for things to ‘leave’, but very little seems to be moving through them. I want to go to the bathroom, but apparently that is not an option. Would ‘unwiring’ me be too difficult?

Nurses (all RNs) come day and night to fiddle with me and the machines. I rarely sleep, and just keep watching the spinning clock. Shifts change and new nurses come in. Each new shift fiddles with me and the machines, as if this whole system is a very interesting thing to study and play with. I am apparently a great case study for something.

Sometimes the nurses attach vials to my neck catheter, which feels a lot like they are sucking my blood. I can’t see how they do it: just the resulting test tube filled with strangely colored blood. It seems darker then I remember blood being. Maybe it is just dark in the room?

Now

It is about five o’clock — when I return to Palo Alto. During the ride back, I did two addiction-recovery meetings by Zoom. I currently need to do four or five of these a week to stay on the ‘Liver Transplant’ list. As part of getting onto this queue for a replacement liver (mine decided to stop functioning along with those negligent kidneys), I signed a contract with Amasa that required a large number of things.

First… I am not allowed on roofs. Well… that isn’t actually first, but it is true. First, I agreed to do anything and everything a doctor tells me. Don’t drink (“check… actually wasn’t drinking long before visiting Amasa ER”); don’t climb on roofs (“check”); don’t drink too many or too few liquids (“check”); don’t eat sushi, rare-ish meat, softboiled eggs, and grapefruits (“apparently ‘not check’ but we will get back to that”).

Next, I agreed to do addiction-recovery meetings almost every day: it started out as more than one a day and then tapered down. I also have to talk with a psychiatrist as often as they want. I must tell someone if I “feel strange”. And the contractual list goes on and on.

I signed it in exchange for ‘my life’, and so I view it as an unbreakable vow. Or at least breakable in only one way.

The addiction-recovery meetings are both the least necessary and the most enjoyable item of this contract. They are especially pleasant when I am driving: they help fill in the otherwise idle time. A two-hour commute passes more quickly for me within a meeting or two than even with a book on tape.

April

Doctors visit me sporadically — but it is hard to predict when they will visit and how many of them will be in the pack. Sometimes it is just a single grey-haired man. Sometimes it is almost a dozen people of various ages, many of which may be residents. They rarely introduce themselves and commonly don’t talk to me at all. Or maybe they do, and I just keep forgetting their names?

The doctors study me and my medical records. They don’t use their stethoscopes, which seems out of character for a doctor. Maybe some covid quarantine rule? The machines do not interest them either: I guess they are just supposed to do their duties. It is a big duty keeping me alive.

The only doctor that does actively interact with me and I am sure is ‘mine’ is Dr. A. She is a psychiatrist. My psychiatrist. She always notably arrives in beautiful outfits vs. boring, identical, medical coats. It is easy to recognize and remember her. Why I need a psychiatrist, I don ’t know. But at least for the moment, she is mine.

Apparently most patients will have to find a different doctor when they leave the hospital, but I am pretty sure I want to keep her if I must have a psychiatrist at all. For one, she is nice enough to read my book. Given it was a memoir, that saved me a lot of time explaining certain things about my past. Ultimately that past did not matter, but a veneer of a person in physical recovery needed to be developed.

We spend a number of hours talking about liver and kidney failure, addictive personalities, suicide, side effects of post-transplant drugs, restrictions post-transplant, and the physical & mental impacts of having liver and kidney transplant surgery. The core questions that matter to her and the Committee of Gods are: (a) will I obey the presurgery & post-surgery behavioral rules; and (b) will I make sure others know if anything is amiss with me mentally or physically. If I do those things, I will get on the transplant list.

A month or so later, I am on the transplant list. And find out that list is irrelevant to me.