Live Heat 103.7

One hundred and three point seven. That boiling number is the fever I had when the nurse in the minor emergency clinic finally put the thermometer in my mouth Sunday night. When my friend picked me up an hour earlier, it was 103.5. I ran high fevers as a child, but thankfully one forgets how freezing cold, scorching hot, and hallucination-inducing that high a fever can be. I did a bit of research this afternoon and apparently if you reach a fever of 103 you should seem medical attention immediately. One fairly conservative medical site screamed in all caps that if you reach a fever of 103 and have lower back pain, CALL YOUR DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY. Why? Because the high fever / back ache combination most likely means you have a kidney infection. And that's dangerous. And painful. Trust me, I now know.

Unbelievably, the intake nurse gave me a bit of how bad can it really be? attitude after she asked me on a scale of one to ten, to rate my pain. I did not hesitate, ten. She said, Really, ten? Ten as if your leg had been cut off and you were sitting here bleeding right now? I have no idea why this woman in the care-giver field would pick that moment to challenge me, but I mustered up every bit of strength I had to respond, feeling at that moment in my high-fevered dementia that it was up to me to save myself and she was the one thing standing in my way. I looked up at her and told in my most serious tone of voice, punctuated by a stream of tears down my face, that I had no idea what it felt like to have my leg cut off but that I had a very high fever and hurt all over and was there because I needed help and not because to debate her on my interpretation of how much pain I was feeling. Then I took a breath, put my pounding head in my hands and asked begged her to just please take my temperature, which she did. And let me tell you there were all sorts of turnarounds on her part after that. Some people are not moved by tears, but fire apparently gets them jumping.

It took five hours, 3,000 milligrams of Tylenol and two IV bags of antibiotics combined with two bags of saline solution to get my fever down and the infection under control. Two weeks of antibiotics will complete the job.

Today, my body is in a different kind of pain. It feels as if a cavalry has run through it with a hundred thundering hooves, it feels like the aftermath of a war that has raged within it, it feels like the shattered walls and weeds growing where bombs landed on neighborhoods in Dubrovnik, Croatia.