Physician, Heal Thyself
(Part 2 of 3)
From ME/CFS
Another metaphor of what my confusing disease feels like — a cold, painful, lonely prison with little hope for escape.
And so I fell, unexpectedly, as if swallowed by the earth, into Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM). I landed in a pit of exhaustion, different from my fibromyalgia fatigue, and the hallmark of a separate disease: Metabolic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. What a mouthful.
The walls of my new cage consisted of cold iron bars, rusty and wet to the touch. I could barely see and scarcely think to assess my situation. After much self-talk, I pulled myself to stand, every twitching sinew screaming within me.
“Silence, flesh!” I cried. “I’m in charge!” I plugged my ears, as if to drown the cacophony, but stung my fingers. My own pulse hurt me. The howling of my body intensified.
With hypersensitized, throbbing hands, I explored the six walls and eight corners of my cramped cell—every pipe, nook, and joint—but found no weaknesses. Not one gap wide enough for my head to squeeze through. Thanks to a glint of starlight, I identified a rusty spike overhead projecting down like a stalactite. “Take note!” I said. Nevertheless, a moment later, I impaled my head upon the spear. What a fool! I couldn’t remember that one precaution.
How much blood I lost, who can say? The spurting and oozing abated eventually.
I discovered the lock to my door early on, but in my stupor, I could make no sense of it—so hidden were the door hinges and so frozen the wheels of my mind. What to think of the flat metal ingot with its central keyhole? The ice-cold lock laughed at me through its toothy, elongated mouth. It mocked me in a hundred tongues, click languages beyond my understanding. I peered through the keyhole. A door clanged in the distance. Next, a hot splatter shot me in the face, soaking and blinding me.
An odor engulfed me like a blanket of rotting mushrooms. I wiped my head and rubbed my eyes, hoping in vain to see. I heard thumping, stomping, and banging, followed by the tinkle of small bells, a calm, and then snoring. The nasal breathing of the distant sleeper began softly, rose gradually, then thundered. I guarded my ears, but the noise burned me everywhere.
My vision returned in stages. The moonlight must have increased, for beyond a heavy fog, I distinguished a tunnel. My heart should have leapt within me, since the potential exit at least offered focus for my imagination. But numb with cold, my hopes never rose. Just as well, for my grim circumstances soon became clear.
Amidst a mountain of empty wine barrels, not twenty strides away, lay a strange yellow man flat on his back, his long feet elevated straight up above his unnatural, swollen belly.
My captor? Or just a guard?
He wore pointed socks, thick and green, that swirled at the tips, possibly the source of half the odor. But such warmth! What frozen person like me ever cared about a stench?
The yellow man sported, over his thin hair, a pointy woolen cap, campfire red, with a single bell on top. Its folded brim angled down, covering one eye completely and highlighting his bulbous nose. “Fortunado,” I whispered, as if casting a spell. “Give me your socks and hat.”
Fortunado rolled over.
Clink.
A ring of silver keys dropped from his hip. The metallic treasure lay precariously, bridging the crack between two wine barrels.
The sleeper snorted and fell silent. Motionless, too. Was he dead? If so, who would ever learn of it? And when? Did anybody know about me besides him? Or did my life now depend upon his survival?
Fortunado’s distended belly shook. He gasped, rose sharply onto his elbows, then flopped back.
The same sleep cycle repeated. Silence. Snort. Elbows. Flop.
I pressed my fingers to my neck, identified my pulse, and used my heartbeats to measure the space between his reluctant breaths. Ten beats. Twenty. Ten. Twenty-two. Silence, snort, elbows …
With the last flop, his keys disappeared into the crevice. Gone. What if my jailer never found them? It was all up to me. But how could I hope to retrieve his keys—my only chance for escape—when I was stuck in an iron cage and had no tools?
Next week, I will explain the scientific criteria of ME/CFS.
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