Ten weeks into non-weight-bearing recovery from reconstructive foot surgery, and somehow, I come down with an illness that sends me out to Urgent Care. With a “mind-over-matter” mentality, I make it out of the house on crutches, grateful that my husband will drive, and we arrive with a half hour to spare before closing time.

How can I have gotten ill, I wonder? I have been watching spring and summer from my blue leather wing chair in the living room, writing poetry, and creating a second manuscript for my children’s book. My sense was a bronchial infection. I’ve suffered with that diagnosis once and come down with pneumonia twice, over the last 10 years or so.

My first call to our healthcare provider is typical. A nurse would call me back and perhaps a video visit would be scheduled. “I just need a zee pack,” I plead to the woman on the phone. “I know my body pretty well, and I’m experiencing the same symptoms as my last bout with a bronchial infection.” The woman recants the same line: “A nurse will call back.”

After the first hour of waiting, I redial. Although I feel like crap, I do my best to maintain a grip on myself and remember to always be kind. That’s kind of my watchword phrase. At least, it’s what I inscribe on the title page of my early reader when a customer purchases the book in person. “There’s been a high turnover of calls,” I’m told. “Sit tight.”

Three hours later, I feel the need to call again, stating my case, begging for a zee pack, doing my best to fight the exhaustion and fever, nagging cough, and burning sensation in my chest.

Finally, a nurse calls back. Since the hour is late and the healthcare facility is about to close, she wants to send me to another facility more than an hour’s drive away. I politely refuse. My bed is calling. The alternate option is an urgent care center nearby to which I agree. It’s not what I want to do, but it seems an individual needs to be seen in person and have a chest x-ray, before antibiotics are prescribed.

I draw on every ounce of strength in my being, calling upon my “mind-over-matter” mentality. Somehow, over the next thirty minutes, I feel a slight sense of a second wind, for which I’m grateful. I take the time to describe my symptoms to the intake person, then the associate, and finally the physician’s assistant on duty. I ask every person their name as part of my lifeline to being human and wanting to appreciate what each person is doing for me, even though I feel like crap. I learn the x-ray technician’s name is Mike. He brings me into his area and sets me up for two images. To my surprise, the PA says the x-ray is clear. Still, I am sent off with a bundle of prescriptions with a spectrum broad enough to treat a few different scenarios since the diagnosis is unclear.

It’s seven-thirty as we travel back. The pharmacy closes at eight o’clock sharp. I wait in the car. I’m going down for the count, as my fever rages. When my husband returns, he informs me the pharmacist only just received the order, but she could fill one prescription before closing time. Of course, it is not the antibiotic.

I feel empty and drawn but my mind-over-matter gets me to bed. I’m exhausted but cannot sleep. My eyes glaze over. Somehow, in my zombie state, I finally doze off. In the morning, a flurry of words come to me. An inspirational writer, I know this is how my muses work, so I capture the beginning phrases on my cell phone. Once I get up for a short bathroom visit, I crutch downstairs in my pajamas, cat following me, and sit at my computer. My fingers type the following.

The Otherness

Disengaged. Uninvolved. Apathetic. The Otherness is a state of Being without form or Structure which finds me sitting on the Edge of life. Relentless and all-consuming, it feels much like drifting in a Fog, without direction or Bearing. The in-between-ness of it grasps at my Shallowed breathing.

This state is, perhaps, reminiscent of the Early stages of grieving when I was not really living each Day, but simply marking time, as a kind of Nothingness took over and sucked me in, Refusing to let go.

However, this time of otherness will come to an End, one way or another. Whether approaching the Beyond or not, at some point, a Glimpse of sunshine will re-enter my Vision. It will take me by Surprise, but then I will begin to Sense, with that Inner wisdom we all have, that Things are starting to Shift and renewed Life will come. The Well will refill.

Just Hold on.

After having that flood of letters fly before me, my exhaustion continues to mount. I manage the mind-over-matter business again to get myself up the 14 steps to our bedroom and crawl back into bed. My arm dangles over the edge of the mattress. In a whorl-like trance, I seem to be living in that fog without direction or bearing.

I recall the final phrase that had been given me. Reaching out and grasping for it, I then pull my arm into myself and under the covers, seeking solace, knowing that sleep will have to get me through until those antibiotics are ready.

Late in the day, a text comes through. “There has been a delay in filling the prescription due to an insurance issue but that has now been resolved. Your prescription is ready for pick up.”

Me too.