The Time I Almost Died

Did I ever tell you about the time I almost died?  No?  Well, I hope you have a strong stomach (and like stories about flesh-eating bacteria):

It was the second-to-last day of summer camp when it all started.  It had nothing to do with camp itself (at least, I don't think it did); I had been going to the same camp for the last 12 years - seven as a camper and five as a counselor - and nothing like this had ever happened before.  In case you were wondering, the camp counseling gig is definitely the way to go.  I mean, the pay isn't good [read: none pay], but you get to eat for free, swim for free, play hockey for free, and basically have eight to 10 little brother to beat up on for an entire week with no supervision (unless you count yourself as "supervision," which is actually kind of the whole reasons counselors are there in the first place...but I use the term loosely because, at least in my case, very little structure is actually provided other than making sure my clan of preteen boys doesn't draw blood or talk about sex too much).

By its very nature, the counselor job requires superhuman levels of energy and an extreme abundance of patience.  Any time any of the boys ingest any amount of sugar - and their parents ensure that they each come to camp with enough candy to probably construct a life-sized and fully functioning actual Candy Land, complete with Gumdrop Mountain and Molasses Swamp and Diabetic Coma Canyon, etc. - they start, literally, bouncing off the walls...and the floors...and each other.  They are all like little physics experiments, hypercharged randomly-swerving particles; it's as if they each stockpile an entire year's worth of ADHD, locked in a hyperactive arms-race/cold-war, and then finally unleash it in a spastic tsunami of furious insanity.  The result is total destruction, a hyperactive holocaust.

And for one week each year, I willingly put myself in the path of these monsters.  It is usually the highlight of my summer.  (Possibly because, maturity-wise, I am only a couple steps above most of them.)

But yeah, right...back to the dying.

Camp was scheduled to end on Friday, and historically (at least for me), Thursday was always one of the hardest days; all the adults are exhausted by this point, and the boys are showing no signs of slowing down.  To make matters worse, I seemed to be coming down with a slight fever.  Suddenly, my energy had been zapped, and I felt weak and light-headed.  "I'll sleep in off, come back strong for the last day," I thought, excusing myself early from the evening's activities, entrusting my legion of spazzoids to another counselor for the night.

But the next morning, I wasn't better.  In fact, I was much worse.  Not only had my fever reached a near-debilitating state, but I now had sores on the roof of my mouth, on my tongue, and my throat hurt so bad I could barely swallow.  What is happening to me?!  I suffered through the rest of the final day, trying my best to appear upbeat despite my body's threatening to collapse at any second.  By five o'clock, I could hardly stand.

Did I mention that I had concert tickets...for that night?

"Why not just skip the show?" you ask.

"Well, I'll tell you why," I chuckle condescendingly, obviously talking to someone who does not grasp the importance of this particular show.  "Not only was it at the old Creepy Crawl - an amazingly intimate/dirty/indie kind of place where you were never more than 20 feet from the stage - but the show also featured two of my favorite bands: Head Automatica and...[pause for suspense]...The Postal Service!"

That's right, Ben Gibbards side-project love-child, the cool lyrical electronica that served as the soundtrack for every scene-kid's basement dance party from 2001-2004 only went on tour one time, and only played a handful of shows in a handful of cities, and for whatever reason had chosen St. Louis as one of the lucky few.

So what did I do?  I did what anyone with a fever of 104 degrees and a mouthful of quickly multiplying sores occupying the whole of his or her mouth, tongue, and throat would do: I went.

The show itself was amazing, though I suspect that one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much was because the fever was causing, at that point, mild hallucinations and blurred vision.  The experience was like being on drugs without the whole "frying your brain" part.  (Actually, that is probably not true...I'm almost positive I did some damage that night).  I didn't even get to see the end; at some point, the wild fluctuation between shivering from chills and nearly passing out from overheating was enough to force me out into the St. Louis summer night.  It didn't matter, though, for I had seen something that few people would ever get to see, and I had danced/stumbled to all of my favorite songs in the most chilled-out dance party of all time.  I sat on the curb and debated if I should throw up, trying not to smile because it hurt my mouth to do so.

The next morning I went to the doctor (which I never do) and was diagnosed with a combination of strep throat and a staphylococcus in my mouth, which, I can tell you from experience, might be the most painful combination ever.  After a rigorous regimen of antibiotics, I fully recovered and did not die.  Me -1, Flesh Eating Bacteria - 0.

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However, the story does not end there.  Apparently, my immune system had been irrevocably damaged by the tag-teamed onslaught of double bacteria, and the flood gates were then opened.  For the next 4 years, I would continue to get staph infections every month or so, usually on my legs or stomach, and each one being intolerably painful while it persisted and always leaving a small dark scar on my body to be remembered by.  Because I knew what these infections were, though, I decided that I didn't need to go to the doctor after that initial visit; my logic was, "hey, if I can fight these off without any antibiotics, my body will be stronger for it, right?"  It made sense at the time.

In the spring of 2006, a sore appeared on my stomach, just above my belly button.  Shit, another staph infection.  Oh well, I'll just deal with it like I always do...ignore it until it goes away.  But this infection refused to go quietly, and in fact, continued to grow and fester, eventually becoming the size of a half-dollar.  I read about the appropriate treatments online, and drained the bastard (which almost caused me to black out from pain), the aftermath looking like a gunshot wound.  I'm not kidding; the bacteria had eaten through so many layers on tissue, the remaining void was deep enough to fit my pinky finger into.  I packed the hole in my stomach with gauze (per instruction...and which fucking hurt more than you can imagine), changed my dressing twice a day, and eventually the gaping cavity slowly mended.  Crisis averted.  No big deal.

Several years later, I accompanied my (then) girlfriend to the dermatologist.  She has begun to get staph infections as well, and she (appropriately) blamed me for this.  "You gave me your disease!" she moaned, "I hate you."  And she had good reason to hate me...goddam they hurt!  

As I told the doctor about my history with staph infections, her eyes widened as I lifted up my shirt and showed her what had healed to look like the aftermath of a stabbing.  "You got that scar from staph?!?!" she stammered, disbelieving.  "Yeah, why?" I asked ignorantly, trying to act like it was no big deal.  "I mean, I did what they told me to do on the internet.  Everything worked out okay."

"And you didn't take antibiotics for this?" she asked, holding up my shirt, examining my scar.

"No.  I didn't think I needed to.  America is just so over-medicated..." I said, trying to sound like I was 

"fighting the good fight," like I should be considered nobel.

"I hate to tell you this now, but you were probably very close to dying."

Information I could have lived my whole life without knowing.  Blissful ignorance.

Looking at me as if I was the lone survivor in a catastrophic plane crash, she informs me that any number of things could have done me in: "You could've gotten an infection and turned septic; you would've been dead within a few days, she says, shaking her head.  "Or the staph could have gotten into your bloodstream and infected your organs, maybe even your brain...if you didn't die, you could have been severely handicapped.  You are very lucky, young man.

Lucky?  I don't know about all that.

I prefer the term INVINCIBLE.

Epilogue:

For any of those who are now scared to be in the same room with me, I am pleased to inform you that I have been staph-free for three whole years (I sound like a recovering alcoholic).  The cure, I found, was to bathe in bleach-water 3 times a week for a month, thus killing every living thing on the body so ruthlessly that nothing can ever grow on it again - the medical equation of deforestation, strip-mining, mass genocide via chemical warfare.

though unbeknownst to him, the staph gathers in the darkest corners, slowly amassing an army, waiting for the perfect moment to strike...