The beginning of the end.

One morning I woke up to find that both my legs, from toes to thighs, had swelled to twice their size. This alarmed me, so I went to the local ER. The doctor there had no idea why my legs had swelled up so he sent me home.

The following morning I woke up to find that my legs were not only still swollen, now they were numb, too. Back to the ER. The doctor there had no idea why my legs were swollen and numb. But this time he didn't just send me home. First, he told me to call my regular doctor and have her arrange for some tests. So I did and got an appointment several days into the next week for a CAT scan.

The next day my legs were about the same, but I wasn't sure I could drive, so I stayed home all day. Later in the evening I felt like I was going downhill, so I called 911. The ambulance arrived and the EMTs got big smiles on their faces when they saw me. They were even chuckling a little, because they knew I'd been in the ER the past two days. So they talked me out of going and I stayed home.

The next morning I found myself sitting on the floor of our living room. I had no clue how I'd ended up there but shrugged it off and started trying to pull myself up, using a chair for leverage. I reasoned that I was having so much trouble because I had severe osteoarthritis in both knees.

I yelled for my 8 year old daughter, Lyra, to get up and get dressed for school. She did that, got her bookbag together and, when the schoolbus arrived, got on by herself. I continued, ever more frustratingly, to get up.

Meanwhile, Lyra got off her bus at school, went straight to her teacher and said, "My Mommy's sick. She can't get up off the floor."

Her teacher, a wonderful woman, Ms. Sublett, rushed over to our duplex, came in, and found me sitting, exhausted, on the floor. She immediately called 911.

Next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital room. I was bemused because my legs both felt like balloons floating above my bed, as if they were tied to my hips by strings.

When I could finally make sense of what people were saying to me, they told me I was in the ICU and that I had bacterial meningitis. I had an abscess -- a staph infection -- on my spine that needed immediate surgery but they didn't have the facilities to do it there and that I would be transferred to Oklahoma City for surgery. On Easter Sunday, no less.

My first logical thought was that I was going to tell everybody I knew not to go to the ER in Stillwater, especially if they were sick.

Then I marvelled at how my little girl had realized how sick I was, when I didn't even know it, and had the poise and intelligence to find help for me. She and her teacher probably saved my life.

I had the surgery and was in different hospitals for a long time. Then I landed in a nursing home. I've been almost continually bedbound for 3-1/2 years now. About 2-1/2 years ago the bright, funny, caring little girl who saved my life lost hers to spinal cancer, not long after her 9th birthday.

And that was the beginning of the end. I hit bottom.

Here is a picture of Lyra and me. I miss her terribly.