Everybody has that one summer they'll never forget. I was 21 and interning in New York City. Every day I walked to work where Broadway shows were made, and every night I went to sleep on 52nd and 8th under a poster of Christine Baranski in
Mame. Everything I had imagined for my small Midwestern life suddenly felt possible.
I sat watching the Tonys from the apartment of my New York dads (I'd say daddies, but it wasn't like that) who were attending the awards. I felt at home on the sofa of the people whose names were in the Playbills that sat under the gifts from Sondheim. But as I sipped Grey Goose and guzzled sushi, my stomach suddenly decided that any plans to afterparty would be postponed. When I woke up to puke at 5 a.m., I was really regretting that second dragon roll.
There is nothing worse than calling out of work after people expect you to be partying. You don't look much better when you're blaming bad sushi, but when I was still calling out of work three days later, I knew I had to reverse the ruling on the turned tuna. This must be full on flu.
On the fourth day, I thought I was getting better. If I sat up vertically at a ninety degree angle, I felt almost completely fine. Sure, I was still too weak to walk much farther than the bathroom and I puked if I ate or laid down, but I could sort of sleep as long as I kept myself propped up with pillows.
On the fifth day, when I stopped answering questions coherently, my hosts decided it was time to seek medical attention.
Nobody likes a lifeless twink in the guest room.
I was raised by healthcare professionals, so I hadn't been to an ER since I split my head open on the playground in fourth grade. Even then I thought I'd be fine. But I didn't want my hosts to worry I was contagious, so I got in the cab reluctantly.
When I was called in to the nurse, she asked how I was feeling and what hurt.
Me: I feel fine, as long as I'm just like this, sitting straight up.
Nurse: Do you know what you look like?
Me: What do you mean?
Nurse: You're yellow. It's called "jaundiced" and it's never a good thing. Your response times are also pretty delayed.
Me: ...I'm just tired. It's hard to sleep sitting up.
Nurse: You need to see a doctor.
I declined a wheelchair and was ushered into the hospital where I was asked to give a urine sample and put on a gown. My friend got to come with me because they kept calling him "the father" and thought I was 16, which I went along with because I didn't want to be alone. When I was ushered into a curtained room with a sleeping homeless man, I was really thankful for my "father".
I was also still holding my urine sample, which I hadn't screwed the top onto correctly, so I was slowly just holding a bag of my pee.
After a few minutes, a doctor came to check in. When he saw the homeless man, he rolled his eyes and yelled at an attendant to remove him, apologizing profusely for his presence. I just asked the doc if he wanted my pee. He said no, just my blood, so I gave him some blood and kept my pee.
My pee was fluorescent orange, by the way.
Then somebody came to take my temperature. They didn't want my pee either. I remember being really relieved that I got to keep my underwear on underneath the hospital gown, but when they asked me to roll over and pull down my underwear, that relief disappeared. It disappeared into my butthole.
As a gay man (where butts are a big thing), I can tell you that nothing feels worse in your butt than a very small metal poker meant to take your temperature. The biggest phallus would feel far less shameful.
Now they had my temperature, but I still had my pee and very few answers.
When the doctor came back to sit on the end of my bed, every gay blood cell in my body shook.
"Do I have HIV?" I quietly asked in panic.
The doctor calmly replied, "No. No you don't have HIV."
The feeling of relief came back out of my butthole.
Me: Do you need this?
I held up the bag full of pee. The doctor took the pee and handed it to a nurse, but it was clear the urine was no longer necessary.
The doctor started to ask me about where I was from and what I was doing in New York, trying to calm me before delivering the news. Then, he asked about my sexual activity.
Sure, I was a young blonde gay living it up in NYC, but I hadn't had sex for months. I was in a dry spell. The doctor looked just as shocked as I was when I counted back to the last regret I could remember. He furrowed his brow and looked down at his papers.
Doctor: The thing is, you're sick. Very sick. We believe you have severe Hepatitis, probably chronic. You're puking because your liver is so inflamed it's pushing into your stomach. Your chemical levels are off the charts, but we can't tell for sure what strain you have just yet. We just know you're very ill.
Me: And you're saying it can be sexually transmitted. Which means I don't even have a good story for how I got it.
The doctor handed me some literature on the matter and said I needed to get more blood testing done as soon as possible. As I was severely dehydrated, I had the option to stay in the hospital hooked up to an IV for the night, or, if I could drink a glass of water without vomiting, he would allow me to leave and get testing done the next morning. It took everything I had not to puke up that water.
Doctor: Hey, if you're lucky, your liver isn't too damaged. If we find the right balance of medications, you could live a pretty normal lifestyle. Maybe even until you're sixty.
Here I was, the summer of my dreams that was going to launch the future of my career, and suddenly there was a time clock on my existence. Suddenly, I was hoping to live a relatively normal life.
I returned to midtown where I sipped Gatorade and threw it up again.
When I went for blood tests the next morning, the new doctor looked at me - hoodie pulled over my head, curled up in his office chair - and asked if I thought I could survive the flight home. He said I was on a long road to recovery and there was no reason I should be doing it alone in Manhattan, risking liver damage, waiting a week for test results without the support of my family. I thought, "SHIT, just give me the bullet." He told me to call my parents and tell them I needed to fly home the next day.
Luckily, I already had a plane ticket home, but two weeks later for my sister's wedding. All I had to do was call the airline and explain that I needed to exchange that ticket for one the next day on doctor's orders, because I might be dying. It wasn't until I was talking to customer service at AirTran that I started crying. What poetic timing. That poor woman.
My parents paid to upgrade me to first class. It's the only time in my life I've flown first class, and all I could do was quietly ask the flight attendant for apple juice, then put my head against the window. I never took my hood off or unwrapped my arms from around my torso. Seeing a 6'1" jaundiced man in the fetal position in first class must have been concerning.
When my parents greeted me at the airport, they were in a much welcomed upbeat mood. I always wondered what the moment felt like for them. Their daughter was getting married and their son was casually handed a life expectancy.
We drove straight to the hospital lab. My arms were already bruising, and since I had lost so much weight from not eating, I looked like a straight up heroine addict.
I spent the next few days on the sofa. I started to wonder how long it would be before I stopped feeling so sick. The doctor had said it would be months before I felt anywhere close to normal. Could I attend my sister's wedding? Would I be well enough to return to school in the fall? I guess I didn't have to plan for retirement. I could barely stay awake for more than a few hours a day. The timeline of my life felt put on pause as I waited for the final round of tests to return.
I received the results after a week at home. The doctor ran through the halls of the hospital to find my mother to tell her I was going to be OK. It felt very General Hospital, but I've never seen that show.
Turns out I had mono.
Really bad mono. Like, the most severe mono my doctor had ever seen.
That's the summer that inspired my tagline:
Reality is relative. Perception is encouraged.
I struggle with how to reflect on this situation, given the fact that it felt like a lot of buildup for something kids get from kissing. When I read back over this, I think it sounds privileged and boo-hoo-for-me. I feel like I should be more upset it felt fatal, but the part of me that tries to show zero emotion and vulnerability doesn't like to remember how scared I really was, so I say it was just melodrama in the moment. That sounds healthy, right?
But whenever I get too stressed or too overwhelmed, I curl up into the fetal position. And when I do, I remember that first class plane ride with my head against the window when I thought I might be dying. I feel sincerely grateful that I'm still here getting to live my relatively normal life that I chose to make relatively normal. Not everybody gets a scare. Most times it's real, and most times it's much worse than chronic Hepatitis, though I suppose that's relative as well.
I guess I'm just trying to say that life can be 100% fucked up, and I'm so glad I know that. So just eat the sushi, it's not going to kill you.
Something else will, so just enjoy first class.
Sorry about that internship though,
TJB: Making It
