Page 119 - FDCC Pandemic Book

By the next morning, I was running a high fever and felt miserable. Joyce, my wife and hospital nurse of 45 years, watched me go from bad to worse overnight. She took me to a local hospital where I was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled into a temporarily constructed triage room. Family was not allowed in the hospital and
I was fading in and out of consciousness.
Happy Fourth Of July!
W alking down the stairs from my “home office” study, I lost my balance and fell. Coffee flew every which way from my “World’s Greatest Grandpa” coffee mug and I landed with a thud. Unfortunately, all of this under the watchful eyes of my wife and daughter who, I continue to believe, are just waiting for an excuse to ship me off to an old folk’s home. “Oh, my God, are you okay Dad?” “I’m good, I just need to fix the edge of this step, I’ll get to it soon.” I knew better. I was light-headed, dizzy and a bit disoriented. My body ached badly enough that I had needed Tylenol each evening for a week or so to get some sleep. But I wasn’t going to tell them that. So I
limped from the bottom step with a smile.
It was the Fourth of July and our “bubble” (my wife and I, along with our daughter, Alison, son-in-law and grandson) were gathered for a backyard BBQ and fireworks display just the other side of Camelback Mountain (where, coincidentally, many FDCC Winter Meetings were held at the Camelback Inn during my 25 years as a member). As I hobbled outside, the setting sun pierced my skin like a hot knife. It’s toasty in
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DOUGLAS L. CHRISTIAN
Christian, Dichter & Sluga, P.C. Phoenix, AZ