Attachments
My body was shutting down,
muscle by muscle.
The doctors had no idea why.
It was like an episode of “House,”
differential diagnoses
refusing to stick.
“We don’t know how this will progress,”
the experts said.
The possibilities multiplied
with every test.
“It could be a rare virus that clears in days,
or your lungs and heart
could just shut down.”
By some grace,
I leaned into the not knowing.
Even with a three-year-old
tethering me home,
I settled into the farmer’s
“we’ll see.”
In the end,
it was a storybook ending.
I had entered the hospital
on Day 29 of a 31-day writing challenge.
On Day 31, I came home
to recover from a rare
but short-lived
virus, still unnamed.
Of course,
it wasn’t the end.
I am not made of Teflon.
And anyway,
Teflon flakes.
Some days, a sniffle sticks
to the thought
“must be lupus.”
Some days I go to write an email
and find so many attachments
I’m stuck in place
by sandburs
in threadbare socks.
I’ll be forever picking them out.
So I try
to watch
my steps.
This piece comes out of a brief but intense stretch in 2016, when I was in the middle of a 30-day writing challenge.
On Day 26, I came down with a fever. By evening, it was getting difficult to even type. By Day 29, I was in the hospital.
I went through test after test, seeing specialist after specialist, who were all baffled. At first, they thought it might be neurological, something like Guillain-Barré syndrome. The blood tests showed my muscles were deteriorating rapidly. It was progressing so quickly that they worried my lungs and heart might just stop.
And then, just as quickly, it resolved. On Day 31, I came home. The recovery was slow because my muscles were ravaged, but I was fine otherwise.
I almost titled this “Differential Diagnosis,” but that centers the medical mystery. What stayed with me was something else: how calm I felt in the face of it.
Of course, that calm was noteworthy, but it was not permanent. Less serious situations can send worry spinning out of control.
The difference between those moments is what I wanted to explore here.
I loved this, Tim. Coincidentally, I was just finishing a piece on what I think is a very similar topic. Your poem rang a bell when your farmer says "We'll see." If you have time to read it I'd love to know what you think.