As I blacked out from cardiac arrest I thought: I am going to die in Africa, naked, at the hands of a French dwarf. How disappointing for my parents.
Days earlier I had felt an exquisite pain like someone twisting a knife in my back. I was 20 at the time, sitting in a restaurant in rural Cameroon. I stumbled from the table and dropped to my knees in the parking lot, bawling like a calf. My colleagues took me to a local clinic. I was soon transported to a private clinic in the capital city.
I was met there by a doctor of exceptionally short stature. With an outrageous French accent and extreme platform shoes, he was a cross between Jacques Clouseau and Gene Simmons from KISS. The diagnosis was renal colic–kidney stones. I had been working outside in the tropics for 9 months, sweating hard every day. At night I drank mostly beer. Eventually my desiccated kidneys had enough.
I was rehydrated in the clinic over several days. Before being discharged, the doctor wanted to do a full body x-ray with an injected tracing fluid. This would confirm if all the calcium was out of my system. In preparation I had to suffer an enema, witnessed by the entire clinic staff at my bedside. Further humiliation followed as I lay naked on the cold x-ray table. No secrets that day. Or dignity.
They injected the iodine trace. Who knew I was allergic to iodine? My heart stopped beating.
Other people see a light at the end of the tunnel. Not me. I saw African faces bending low, weaving in and out above me like a kelp forest in the water. There was a tiny white shark circling the kelp forest. It was speaking French and wearing platform shoes. I also vaguely remember my tongue being clipped to the side of my mouth, injections, chest compressions.
When the ordeal ended I was weakly helped off the table and into a wheelchair. Unexpectedly, a nurse brought me a chocolate bar. I remember clearly it was a Twix. I had not seen chocolate in 6 months. Her gift unleashed a flood of uncontrollable tears. I sat there naked, savouring the chocolate, sobbing and laughing and overwhelmed with inexpressible gratitude for the precious gift of this life. May I feel that way every day.