night sweats

OMINOUS

 

December's winter has set in with a roar. Christmas is only a week away and at 9:30 in the morning, the street lights are still on. Car wheels whirr on the ice. Winds blow strong and leak in and around my windows. I've set the thermostat to 70 but it is not enough. I add on a heavy coat sweater over the pullover I slept in last night. The wind's whistle speaks to me. 'Beware, the fates have been disturbed. Your luck is running out.' I shake my head in disbelief and laugh at the foolish warning. My luck is going to run out? I will be thrilled if it does. All I've had is bad luck for weeks. Backgammon dice are still on the dining room table. It was last October when Bill and I had our weekly tournament and I lost nine of the ten games. That was the prophetic omen–the start of the downward spiral waiting for me.

 

As Halloween draws closer, aches and pains begin to rack my body. Not ever having need of a doctor before, I ask Bill to give me his doctor's number. Bill refuses because Dr. Kline took care of his mother after she fell and broke her ankle and he wasn't aware she was having a stroke while he was applying the cast. She died then and there. I knew she had died but not the circumstances. Foolish me. I write his name down on a blank note pad and take snide pleasure scratching it off.

 

Not sure of what to do, who to call, my arm aching, I drive myself to nearby Northland General Hospital, circle the parking lot three times and park a zillion miles from the Emergency entrance. My breath comes slowly but I make it, only to see two young ladies, oblivious to me and my tapping fingers,  chatting away. The dark haired one is chewing gum. The pain in my chest gets stronger. My jaw aches. My arm feels numb and that is all I remember until I become aware a foot long needle is taped to my right arm and something in a plastic bag is dripping down a pipe into another needle in my left arm.

 

A doctor who looks to me like he just got out of high school tells me I had a mild heart attack, not to worry. 'We'll keep you here a few days, teach you what you can and cannot do, give you lots of tips on eating habits. See you tomorrow.' I stay there four days  and am presented with an $8000 bill at the check out window. My head spins and I get frightened. A quick, but not necessarily correct, tally tells me that at $200 a month it will take me about 3 years to pay this off. Worry beads roll down my forehead. If I can't work, where will that money come from? My impending demise hangs over me, menaces me, constantly. The fates have warned me. Now that I am back in my house and the cold is eating my bones, the future is as dark as the deep gray morning sky.

 

Bill visits every few days, brings me hard lemon candies, sometimes a ham sandwich. We drink hot sassafras tea and play backgammon for match sticks. I lose all of my match sticks time after time and quit playing. He brings new Ace playing cards and we try Gin Rummy. Bill wins two out of three games. I give my trusty friend the last ½ bottle of Scotch I have in my useless bar. He doesn't want to take it but does. And I feel free to leave, to crawl in a hole and just leave.

 

Thunder and lightning fill the air. I lie in bed waiting for a strike to deliver me from evil. It doesn't happen and I am obliged to learn how to play Tiddly Winks with Bill. He is an expert but we tie game one.

 

 My spirits rise a little and I take out the backgammon set, ready to win back some match sticks.