Feb. 7

It didn't seem like it could get worse. There was hardly any cereal left and one warm beer. The cereal included a "prize". A double-edge razor blade. Apparently, a former line-worker, hearing he was going to be fired decided to leave his mark. In an odd way I'm glad it was me that found it in the nick of time.

Later in the day my relief turned to nausea. Oddly enough it had nothing to do with nearly having the inside of my mouth cut up like confetti. It was not until my third, world-record setting, dash to the lavatory that I realized that something might really be amiss. I tried a clinic first. I was informed by a tired and surly desk nurse that the estimated wait time was three hours (if I was lucky), I decided to risk worse infection, not to mention my upholstery, and take my chances at hospital triage.

In my thirty-one years of life, I have never seen such a large number of medical professionals so thoroughly befuddled than the parade of doctors that came by my bed that day. There were so many blood (and other) tests it was amazing I didn't die of dehydration.

Turns out I had contracted a previously unknown strand of a devastating disease that had been ravaging parts of India and Africa for the last three years. I was the first North American to get it and the only person to survive. This piqued the interest of medical researchers around the world. There was, apparently, a component in my blood that made me resistant to the worst features of the virus. Looks like there are going to be a few more needles in my future. And I couldn't be happier.