Instant Karma's Gonna Get You...and Did!

Famous last words, Dr. Karma. I think Mr. Lennon was closer to the truth, "Instant Karma's gonna get you... You better get yourself together, Pretty soon you're gonna be dead!"

I really gave my all to resisting the onslaught of PKD. I went to work every day, worked the floor, rolled stock, lifted cases of wine but I was continually exhausted. Some days it was difficult to walk from one end of the store to the other, but I pushed on. Many days it was a struggle just to drive home from the store. Looking back, I really don't understand my thinking. It was as if I just worked hard enough, the problem would just get tired of fighting me, that my stubborn drive would just break on through to the other side.


There were some good times. We met up with the boys in Santa Fe for a fun few days of vacation during the summer. In Los Alamos we visited the sites including The Black Hole, a salvage store in an old Safeway that sells surplus equipment from the labs. That's a lot of used exotic stuff! We met the legendary proprietor "Atomic Ed" Grothus. We went walking through the ruins at Bandolier National Monument. Progress was hindered because I had to sit down and rest every few hundred yards. During the trip my urine was tinged with blood. It was scary, but cleared up after a couple of days. I guessed it had something to do with the stent, but I kept it to myself and until today have never mentioned it to anyone. Talk about stubborn stupidity!


Back in Dallas, the year moved into fall and the holidays, the busiest time of year for any retail endeavor, but especially for wine and spirits. I was working long hard hours in the store and spending long hours at choir rehearsals and services as we neared Christmas. Certainly a season that makes huge demands on time and energy. Time I had, but energy was in short supply. But, yes, I hung in and worked my double shifts, got off work and still went to dinners and parties and somehow came through the holidays intact. 

Or so I thought.

I woke up unusually exhausted on my first day off in January, after the holidays. Exhausted and dizzy, I just collapsed into an easy chair in front of the television and napped on and off. Every now and then I would get to use the bathroom, do a load of laundry, get something to eat or drink, but the exhaustion and dizziness seemed to get worse and worse as the day went on. I remember bouncing off door frames, lurching from chair to chair for support until I could collapse in my chair. Any guesses as to whether any alarms were going off in my brain? Did I call anybody for help? Did I call a doctor? Did I even look up symptoms on the Internet? No, of course not.



Finally late in the afternoon, Instant Karma "knocked me right in the head" and I blacked out and collapsed on the living room floor. Somehow I established a link to consciousness and dragged myself up into my safe haven, the chair. "Susan would be home soon," I reasoned, "so I'll just sit here until she does." And that's what I did. When she got home I did a surprising thing, I told her about the dizziness and collapse. I was feeling more stable now. We decided to call the doctor first thing in the morning.