Hello little seeds and saplings of enlightenment,
...From exotic Norristown, Pennsylvania. Never heard of it? It's a remote village in the southeast corner of this expansive state in the great and mighty crumbling empire of the United States of America. (Is that an oxymoron?) Maybe, like me, you are surprised that I am here... and not inIndia, overlooking humbling Himalayan mountains and sipping chai. I'll give you the long-but-short of it:
The day was April 19th and after seeming to improve in health and vitality for several days, I had now been deteriorating for several days; First I woke up one morning with a continual headrush when standing, and intestinal bleeding. I went back to my doctor and she told me I had low hemoglobin and was weak, and recommended healing foods to eat and told me I had probably just eaten some "dirty" food (a favorite explanation in India!), and sent me on my way with my 2nd weeks' dose of antibiotics. Then a fever returned. By the 19th, when Matti came to visit me for lunch, (we had split up to seperate guesthouses a few days before, to take space from each other) I was weak and utterly dizzy and had a temp. of 102 again. But it seemed like the right thing, to go eat with him... So I hazily walked behind him down the steps and a short walk down the road to a restaurant and we ate.
Like a ton of bricks, dizziness was overwhelming me. I found myself, forthe second time in 3 days, laying down unable to sit up on a restaurant bench, and after 1/2 hour with no improvement, Matti asked me if he should fetch the doctor and I vaguely told him "that would be good". When they returned, the doctor told me to stand up and I knew I was going down if I did. But I noticed a taxi waiting out front for us, and after taking a few steps with the help of Dr. Naveen, the next thing I knew I felt like I was floating away from my body and then I heard Matti say "I'm sorry!" as my head bumped the door of the taxi and I came to, cradled in his arms in the back seat of the taxi.
At the hospital in Rishikesh with an IV in my arm again, I was told I was going to need blood, which they couldn't provide there, so I would need to transfer to the big hospital near Dehradun. Around 11 PM they wheeled me into an ambulance and Matti rushed to our guesthouses to grab all of our things and check out and by midnight or 1 we were in the ER in Dehradun after a nauseous and bumpy ambulance ride.
This is when surreality took over. I can't really describe yet what a strange reality it was, to be conscious and communicative but simultaneously so close to Death... after taking blood samples, everyone was alarmed to discover that I was severely anemic: While the average healthy woman should have hemoglobin levels between 12-16 g/dl, mine was dangerously low at 4.7, coupled with a fever of 104 and Typhoid that had progressed into its later stages of extreme infection, Matti was told that he was now responsible for my life and making decisions in the absence of any family members, and meanwhile I was poked and prodded in every orifice of my body, shivering under two wool blankets next to a heater, getting shots in my butt and a tube stuck down my throat (this was by far the most painful of any treatment, and it proved to be unnecessary), x-rays and ultrasound and stool samples and oxygen and dozens of different nurses and doctors asking me questions, telling me to take pills, taking my blood pressure and sticking thermometers in my armpits, all the while I'm scared and perhaps slightly delirious, but ironically for the most part unawareof the seriousness of my condition.
Matti sat by my side all night long and held my hand and listened to me whispering my philosophical insights into the meaning of the experience unfolding for us in between tears and attempts at sleep and rest, while the flourescent lights pierced me and the tube rubbed at the back of my throat, making it more sore. The next day more psychological pain ensued, which I'm sure was a sign of my improvement, but still the fever lingered and weakness persisted as I continued to loose blood and we waited uneasily for the fever to come down so that the blood transfusions could be performed... I always wanted to know my blood type, and now I knew: I am O negative.
I've never believed in angels, pixies perhaps seem more plausible to me, but there's really no other way to describe Matti's role in my life...what can be done to repay the debt of life to another person who has saved it? And not only saved it, but nurtured it... from rubbing my back to asking the doctors questions they didn't want to answer, to getting my drugs (in India the patients' family is responsible not only for their personal care in the hospital, but for procuring drugs and supplies from the pharmacy before the nurses can administer them!!) and fetching food for me, helping me drink water and eat when I was very weak, and arranging the pillows behind my back when I was able to sit up... communicating with my parents and his, gathering information, emptying my bedpan and vomit, giving chocolate to the nurses, making me laugh and pulling me out of the depressed mindstates that ensued, rubbing mosquito repellent on me at night, giving blood so that I could receive more (in India they also try to trade blood for blood, since doners are in short supply), convincing and policing me to eat when I had no desire... he wasn't just a rock, but a big, towering granite boulder that I could lean against, rest upon, feel the warmth from like it had sat absorbing the heat of the sun all day long. Matti served me selflessly in a way I never imagined possible. I didn't realize human beings could treat each other in such a manner...with such a level of integrity... how can we ever doubt the true nature of humanity, that so many dozens of people have contributed so willingly, so fluidly, to assure the continued existence of just one single person???
If this experience has secured in my thoughts one thing, it is that we ARE seeds of enlightenment... and the qualities of purity, piety, integrity,and selflessness can be cultivated in the most tiny of actions, to have massive effects like tsunamis across an ocean. What efforts could be more important in ANY life, than cultivating such noble attributes for one's own benefit, and for the benefit of so many others? And while I came close enough to Death to hear it's whispers, quickly I ricochet back into Life and interestingly I find that although the two coexist like opposite sides of the same coin, it is very difficult to maintain the connection to the other while existing within its contrast.
Matti's incredible attentiveness continued when he realized that I was going to need more help and for that my parents would need to come to India to retreive me. After much communicating, my mother arrived on a Tuesday night bearing flowers and a Reed's Ginger Ale. For a woman who works in coorporate America and lives on the 35th floor of a Manhattan coorporate apartment and eats at 5-star restaurants, my mother demonstrated a courageous determination in coming to India, sleeping on a hospital cot, and eating dal and rice with me for 5 days while taking over all of the other duties that Matti had been fulfilling. Four kinds of antibiotics, three blood transfusions, 12 pounds of weight loss, and9 days in the hospital later, I was released. Marge (my mom) and I took a heinus 7-hour, 200-kilometer drive to Delhi and arrived at the sickly-extravagant Radisson hotel late at night and flew out to NYC the next afternoon.
Weak, underweight, and still anemic (my hemoglobin level went from 4.7 to9-something, so now I have to build it up to 12) but feeling stronger and more grounded every day, I have months of recovery ahead. I won't be traveling much and I won't be climbing any mountains anytime soon, and I won't be filling your inboxes with any more travel journals for awhile. Maybe I'll write that book... be a little introverted for awhile...reconnect with my love of cooking and gardening and try as hard as I can to stay put, and reflect on my new life, giving thanks to the dozens of nurses, doctors, family, and friends (and my own personal angel, of course), who gifted it to me. Give a call if you want to come visit suburb- err, village life in Norristown, Pixie's done with making rounds to everyone else for a while. May you all feel the flood of whatever moves you to live, to be vital, to serve, to give yourself up to the spirit of Oneness that underlies every atom of the Universe.
love love love Pix
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