Me, Whoopi, and Elvis

 


I am still here... with Whoopi and Elvis

Just to clear things up, I’m still here. Against all odds, maybe, but still here. I'm still alive.

Some of you that read my outdoors column regularly may have heard that I had “run aground” infection and heart problems linked to a back fusion two weeks ago. I did, for a fact.

My wife, Pam, drove me to St. Francis Hospital post-back surgery after my heart rate had fallen to the low 30s. She kept me alive while driving the car with one hand and slapping me in the face with the other, at one point screaming, “You are not going to die in my car!”

So I didn’t, fearing other consequences, apparently, more serious than death.

You maybe don’t know the girl as well as I do.

The initial operation, performed by Dr. Zee Khan at St. Francis, went well with no apparent complications; sent home after a Tuesday surgery, things went south in a hurry that first night home on Thursday when my body was invaded by a massive infection. Two weeks later, here I am (I said that already) still in the hospital living on cafeteria food.

My delusions, brought on by painkillers, have lessened somewhat, peaking out by waking one morning before daylight to the TV news that Whoopi Goldberg had either been elected President or had a battleship named after her in my absence, both possibilities, in my weakened state, causing me no end of distress regarding the rapid decline of our country in my absence. I like to never have gotten that straightened out.

Tramadol and Percocets are powerful stuff, the latter, I think, being the drug that killed Elvis, living secretly, I think the nurse told me, in the room next to mine — with Whoopi Goldberg.

Pam came up with the idea of celebrating our 50th anniversary in Canada, fishing.

“I want to celebrate quietly,” she said siting here in my hospital room. “Maybe we fish, maybe we don’t. Just the two of us. No big wing-ding.”

“Can Elvis go?” I asked innocently.

She may have thrown something at me. I can’t remember that part. But I'm still alive.

 

© 2016 Conrad M. Vollertsen

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