#23 / 2003: Tour 2: Oct. John Day, Oregon

BEATLICK US TOUR REPORT #22

#23

As you may have noticed, our US tour came to a screeching halt after the Burning Man Festival. There is much to be reported later on about our experiences there, but for now I just want to catch up on what happened out in the desert.

We pulled out of Black Rock City on Monday, Sept. 1, heading toward Oregon. We came to the little town of Gerlach, sometimes affectionately called Garlic, which was only twelve miles from the festival site. Having eaten nothing but dust, tabouli, and oatmeal for ten days, we were ready for a meal.

There was a tiny little café serving breakfast, so we pulled in. I ordered biscuits and gravy. I was a little disappointed to see sausage in it, because I had been really making an effort to eat better, but what the hay, down it went. It tasted pretty darned good, too.

No sooner had we left the café and pulled out on the road, when I started feeling bad. I thought I had wrenched my back hauling cases on top of the van. In another hour or two I was really uncomfortable and getting cranky. I began to think I had encountered some food poisoning.

I drove about four hours that morning I guess, until we found a little campground on the outskirts of California. Joe put a blanket down on the ground for me, under a shade tree, and there I writhed in continuous pain for over eight hours. I knew something was seriously wrong, but I was so afraid, didn’t think my TennCare health insurance would be any good anyplace else but Tennessee. I had fears of being air lifted out of the desert in an ambulance helicopter, incurring medical debts so astronomic that I would pay for them the rest of my life.

I have enjoyed such incredibly good health for so many years, got it from my mother, so I was determined this was something I could beat if I could only continue to hang on. I rolled around on that blanket all day in unbelievable pain. And it’s funny what pain will do to your thinking. I kept fantasizing that maybe some of those old folks in the RVs might be a retired doctor or nurse. We were as far from the restrooms as we could get; I could hardly endure the walks to get there. It seemed like miles, All along I kept thinking, someone is going to realize how sick I am, maybe offer me a cold drink, something we didn’t have.

But all those people treated me just the way I treat anyone that looks like trouble; they turned their heads the other way. I finally was able to move into the van by nightfall. Finally, the pain had subsided enough that if I lay in one certain position I could get comfortable enough to fall asleep. And so ended the first day.

Next day, Joe cleaned a lot of the dust out of the van, washed the sheets and blankets in a bucket and laid them out in the sun to dry. I couldn’t drive so Joe, with no driver’s license, took the helm. I really had to be sick to let him drive. But he did a great job; the area was so remote and desolate that it really didn’t matter. This went on for five days, Joe driving, me laid up in the back of the van, mostly sleeping and trying to endure. Every day one thing would happen to give me some hope. My kidneys still worked, that was a good sign, I didn’t think I had too much of a fever. By the third day I had quit eating because I didn’t want to throw up. I had upchucked all the bile in my system, sometimes called the dry heaves I think. I sure didn’t want that to happen again.

And I just kept hanging on from Monday until Thursday night. That was the night I thought I was going to die. I cried out to my dead mother, because I feared she was coming for me. All night long I prayed not to die, pleading with mother that I wasn’t ready to die yet, please help me. By this time we had driven out of the little corner of California we were in and were roaming around Oregon, vaguely pointed toward Seattle. The towns were so far apart and so small. There were no hospitals on the map. I had passed up an opportunity to go a hospital on Wednesday, and now we were hundreds of miles from that town. Friday morning was Sept. 5, the one year anniversary of my mother’s death. Those five days I had writhed around in and out of consciousness were the same five days my mother lay in her bed at home under hospice care, slowly dying, just like me.

When I woke it was raining, cool. I felt like my fever had broken. Maybe it was a sign I was going to get better, but this was taking so long. Joe located a little town called John Day, Oregon, on the map. There was no mention of a hospital, but we headed in that direction anyway.

As the morning progressed my fever returned and I was really getting scared. By some miracle when we got to John Day, Joe saw a big blue H indicating a nearby hospital. “Pull in,” I pleaded. At this point I no longer cared how I would ever pay for my care, file medical bankruptcy, I guessed.

And so it was on the anniversary of my mother’s death that we found the Blue Mountain Hospital in John Day. It was not even finished yet, a little community hospital with only fourteen beds. It was still under construction and a new surgeon had only been on board a few weeks. Within one hour of checking in, I was in surgery to have my gall bladder removed, it had ruptured. How much of a miracle was that, to find that brand new hospital out in the middle of nowhere, to have a new surgeon on call just as I arrived? I am convinced my mother led us there, that she heard my prayers and guided Joe through that wilderness to just the place I needed to be.

I was in the hospital for five days, then in a little motel in Oregon for another five days until I could regain some of my strength. I even drove us all the way to Seattle last Sunday, where we will remain for a few weeks.

So this is catch up time. I am really behind on my reports, but plan to get back in sync as the weeks pass. I am just so grateful to be alive, and so thankful to my own mama in heaven for saving me.