Did you miss me? I hope so because if you didn’t the editors would probably be asking, why are we running a guy nobody reads?
Knowing what I now know, I consider myself lucky to be writing this at all. I have been laid low with an insidious and potentially fatal disease known as sepsis. It is my second such experience.
May there not be a third.
In case you aren’t aware of sepsis, it is a condition in which chemicals released into the bloodstream to fight infection instead turn rogue and begin to do a number on your own organs, leading them to fail. A bacterial infection anywhere in the body may set off the response that leads to sepsis.
Two things I have learned from sepsis is no one is quite sure how you get it, but health experts are sure it is deadly.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more deaths occur every year in the U.S. from sepsis than opioid overdoses, prostate cancer, and breast cancer combined. Six years ago, I almost became one of those statistics.
On a Saturday evening, our kids came to take us to dinner. I felt a little under the weather but not so bad as to not enjoy time with them. My daughter-in-law, a registered nurse, walked in, took one look at me, and announced I was very sick and needed to go to a local clinic immediately for evaluation. It turns out she was correct.
A call to my primary physician, Dr. Robert Coney, from the clinic’s physician with a bunch of disturbing numbers got me into the ICU within the hour. It was sepsis, and had she not shown up when she did, and had Dr.
Coney not been available that particular Saturday evening, I very likely would not have made it through the night.
But make it I did, though a bit worse for wear. The aftermath left me weakened enough that I am now dependent on a cane to get around these days and I’m still not quite sure what made the chemicals in my bloodstream decide my organs and I were the bad guys, not the infection.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and it’s déjà vu all over again. I awoke with what looked like a small fever blister on my lip. Nothing a dab of Neosporin couldn’t handle. Except it didn’t. Within a few days, my lips looked like a bad Botox job.
That was followed by a rash that covered my face, followed by two days of intense illness, leading to dehydration and a trip to the hospital, where I spent 10 days being poked and prodded, usually between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. For some reason, hospitals aren’t inclined to poke and prod in the daytime when the patient is more likely to be awake.
I am now in rehab trying to undo what sepsis did.
It has given me some time to ponder. Have I been spared for a reason? If so, for what purpose? One thing won’t change: I will continue to ascribe to the philosophy of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
In other words, sepsis or not, I will vigorously represent your concerns regarding the ham-handed effort by an Alabamabased company to drill for titanium oxide in our Okefenokee so the world will never run low on housepaint, toothpaste, or chewing gum.
As for afflicting the comfortable, I would suggest Governor Brian Kemp and Congressman Buddy Carter instruct their PR folks that ignoring you and I comes with much peril. I hate being ignored and I suspect you do, too. This is not their Okefenokee, it is ours. And I’m not done yet reminding them – and a particular land baron in the area who seems to be pulling the strings – of that fact.
So, I’m back and glad to still be here. As for my editors, thank you for your patience.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@ dickyarbrough.comor at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.