Excerpt:

Shipwreck

On a muggy summer evening, standing at the helm of our sailboat "Second Chance," I steer an overnight race from Annapolis to St. Mary's. In a steady breeze, full sails drive her dark green hull easily through light choppy waves. The stern wake hisses as lights twinkle on other vessels and on the shores.

As we pass Thomas Point Light, the gray sky suddenly darkens as low black clouds rush in from the west. I smell ozone on the building wind and I hear distant thunder. Suddenly, lightning bolts zigzag across the sky. Then, rain and hail pelt us. Frantically the crew pulls down the sails. A great gust knocks us onto our port side. Wind and spray roar over ten-foot swells. Giant boiling waves crash on the deck, washing the crew overboard. Water rushes into the cockpit and through the companionway to the cabin below.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday," I shout as the sloop sinks beneath me.

My shouts end the dream. I awake alone in an isolation room on the eleventh floor of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. Pale winter sunlight filters through the curtained window wall. On this morning in February, 1999, the third month of an illness, I have not eaten or drunk anything for thirteen weeks. I weigh fifty pounds less than normal. My looks frighten me: my ribs and sternum protruding, little muscle remaining in my neck, left arm, and shoulders; all large muscles considerably smaller. Most of my head and body hair has fallen out. The backs of my hands are bruised brown and blue. With all fingers white and thin, my wedding ring slips off too easily, and my wife, Martha wears it on a necklace.

Motors hum. One pumps IV (intravenous) fluids and antibiotics, another total perenteral nutrition (TPN) and other medications into me through a PICC line, a sterile tube entering a vein in my left inner arm above the elbow and extending to the right chamber of my heart. Another pumps a feeding solution into me through a tube halfway down the left side of my abdomen. Yet another pressurizes the mattress I lay on. Alarms beep as antibiotics and IVs finish or the pumps malfunction. The high-pitched triple beeps continue until the nurses come to my room to rectify the event, sometimes taking many minutes. The overhead paging in the hallway is muffled unless a fire, security emergency or cardiac arrest requires hospital-wide response. When that happen, CODE RED! CODE WHITE! CODE BLUE! disturb even the hard of hearing behind closed doors. Flowers on the window sill fragrance the room with freesia, my favorite, second only to Martha's perfume, Anais Anais. Fresh flowers arrive almost daily with heartfelt wishes, comfort and love.

This morning I am anxious and disturbed by the dream and the racing of my tired and tireless mind. Critically ill, I want to live. Will I be rescued? Will help come in time? Is my life over? How will it end? Coma? Hemorrhage? Infection? What really was done at the first surgery? Was the post-op care too casual? Did I take too little responsibility for my own care? What will it take to heal the small bowel perforation? How long will the internal infections persist? Will I survive the needed third operation? I sigh, close my eyes and try to imagine how Martha and the children will cope if I die. Will there be a dark tunnel ending in bright light? Will I see my parents on the other side? Should I be cremated? Where will I be buried? Was the dream an omen?

I force myself to take a deep breath and start my morning prayer, "Mother, Father, creating God, you accompany me in all my efforts."

Day sixty-seven begins...

Mayday! A Physician As Patient, pp.9-11