Power of Love

So as you know in Pittsburg I eventually needed three transplants. You recall that I rejected the first and lost the second to a viral infection (CMV). In those days there was no treatment for viruses. My father had explained that they couldn’t be killed because they were not really alive, not able to replicate in the absence of a host. Did you know that von Neumann had proposed (before the discovery of DNA) that living things were self replicating machines, and that therefore there needed to be something to transmit the information in order to replicate? I always think of that when I think, what is life?

So after I tested positive for CMV, the doctors basically stopped coming into the room. I started running dangerously high fevers (like 105), and the nurses put me on a cold mattress. Then one night, weak from fever but unable to sleep with from nearly continuous coughing, I got out of bed and sat in a chair with my headphones and tape player. I listened to Band of Gypsies. Power of Love. With the power of soul, anything is possible… I said Flotation is groovy, and easy, even a jelly fish will tell you that. I tried to float like a jelly fish and hold on ‘till the morning.

In the morning they did a gallium scan. Afterword I was lying on a gurney in the hall. Suddenly, I felt intensely calm. I felt the pain start to fade. Somehow, I knew that this was THE moment. Just before I lost consciousness I grabbed a white sleeve on someone that happened to walk by. “If anyone cares, I am going” I said. Then I drifted off, but somehow remained able to hear. I heard someone scream, “Get the crash cart!”. They wheeled me out of the hall and I had the sensation that I was floating. I felt myself start to rise. Although I couldn’t truly see, I looked down and saw myself lying on a bed. And then I was gone.

At one point I became briefly conscious and I found myself in the ICU with an intubation tube in my mouth. Meg’s face loomed in front of me. She said, “They’re going to Jacksonville to get you a third liver.” I gave her the thumbs-up sign. Then I went down again.

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