Back from the trip

I'm back from my trip. I made the first leg of it successfully, then cut it short and came back.

I drove from here to White Pine in eastern Tennessee. That was my grandfather's birthplace. There is no family presence there at all now – I didn't even find relatives in the two town cemeteries. But at least I can say I saw the place, and I have some vague idea of the environment in which my grandfather grew up more than a hundred years ago.

I got sick while I was there. I decided that rather than try to drive up into Illinois and take Route 66 back home, I'd just come back the way I went, straight through on I-40. By the time I checked into a hotel in Jackson, TN, Wednesday evening, I had a severe sinus headache, fever, chills and a wracking cough. I coughed so hard that all the coughing reflex muscles in my chest and diaphragm ached, and it hurt to cough and even to just roll over in bed. I coughed so hard that sometime during the night I gave myself a nosebleed. When I awoke the next morning, the bed looked like Sweeney Todd had been sleeping in it. I still felt bad and wasn't sure I should try to drive home, but decided to risk it.

As it turned out, I felt much better once I got out of the hotel and under way, which made me wonder if some sort of carpet shampoo or other chemical had made my illness even worse after I checked in. I got home about 6 pm Thursday. I had forgotten to take my blood pressure medicine with me, so I took it as soon as I got home, went straight to bed, and slept through until morning.

I got up Friday, took more bp medication, and then went back to bed for most of the day in bed, still coughing a little and feeling generally listless. Later in the afternoon, I went out in the back yard and did a little cleaning up. I suddenly became immensely tired, and almost collapsed into my favorite chaise lounge. Then I began to feel nauseated. 'Surely I'm not going to barf,' I thought. 'I've eaten almost nothing in the past three days – what am I going throw up?'

But my stomach kept churning, so I pulled myself out of the chaise lounge and headed for the bathroom in the garage. As soon as I was up on my feet, I remember, I thought, 'Wow. I'm feeling really detached from reality right now.' I took a couple of steps toward the garage. I remember thinking, 'I'm still here. I'm still here.' Then I was looking down at the ground and thinking, 'How long I have been standing here?' Then there was a loud THU-WHOMP, and I remember having a brief but definite feeling of calm and peacefulness.

And then I was on my back, looking up at the sky. There was a breeze blowing across my face, scattering fallen elm and crape myrtle leaves around me. Although I had not felt a thing, not even a sensation of falling, I knew the sound I'd heard must have been me hitting the garage, then sliding down the wall to the ground. I had a couple of scrapes on my right arm, but other than that, no bruises or bumps.

I rolled over on my stomach and laid there in the grass awhile. I felt grateful to have had the opportunity to have been brought down face-to-face with the grass and the earth and the fallen leaves, with a warm autumn breeze still blowing. Bailey looked at me from across the yard, and slowly wandered over to see what I was doing. Gaston the cat appeared on my other side, stuck his nose in my face, then went back up on the deck.

I'll need to be more careful about overdoing the blood pressure meds.

I've got more to write about this, but not right now.