Just like that the first half of February has passed.
It all had started rather well. 2018 Was of to a good start. After several years of School of hard knocks (and then some), slowly but surely things were falling together again.
In what may seem little to most, I was enjoying having moved to a larger unit. A unit with both space for and a table to work from again. I even had gotten my own high office chair again.
Little guilty pleasures.
Life victories. Battles won, slowly but surely. Victory. Life was starting to become good again. Possibly starting to look forward to things again, things like... upgrading that five years old phone. Maybe even get a health monitoring wrist device. Small things like that.
After having visited my own Lazarus pits, it indeed was awesome to wake every day again.
And then, then the Spanish Inquisition life struck.
Again.
We are now February 15th and to be honest, I don't know if this is the fourth or fifth day I'm back home. I think it's the fifth day.
The fifth day home after 12 days of hospitalization.
In the last week of January, totally out of the blue, I was struck with what we thought was a horrible reaction to house dust, something a long time ago I was allergic to and treated for. With every passing day, my cheeks swoll up more, I started struggling to breathe ever more and fever tied me to bed.
Until, eventually, my face was that swollen that my headlights were pretty much shuttered too.
Time for ER.
I don't often get ill, let alone visit ER, but historically when I do the ER crew usually gets sufficient cause to panic and be occupied for hours before catching a (well deserved) nap.
When they had settled on:
- Allergic reaction with bonus pulmonary infection;
- Shingles (How the heck did I get anything herpes related if I "hadn't gotten any" for months?!?!?!);
- Pneumonia (while living in the tropics, well done FknMayhem!).
The bed in the picture above soon became my mainstay. Or a least as long as I was airborne or alternatively could continue to pay for all expensive IV antibiotics.
Long, boring, story short: after 12 days I was released. Released with a ridiculous bill, a financial setback for probably the next 18-24 months.
But so be.
So be because something priceless happened.
Dutiful as they are in their quest to be rewarded paid before discharging patients, the hospital had called my embassy in the hope that maybe they may contribute a share of the bill.
Embassies being embassies, with me still having family on this planet, on my third day of hospitalization I was contacted by somebody with a slightly broken English and a rather familiar voice.
It was my dad.
After just little more than two decades without contact. Unsolicitedly. I would never have contacted them to say life sucked and I was in sudden financial issues.
After more than two decades, we have now been mailing daily for almost two weeks now and it seems that this solitary man, this digital nomad may soon end his nomadic existence.
No promises, no decisions made yet. Things are as scary as exciting.
But while the hospital bill will influence my next year, and possibly more, that is a small price to pay if there could be the option that my parents, and my family in general, and I may soon unite again.
Health may be expensive, although I did try to convince the billing department it was priceless but they were having none of it, reuniting as a family is priceless though.
Something to look forward to. Not the (near) future I had in mind but definitely a future I am seriously considering and willing to explore.
Besides, my dad uses both Windows 10 and a Samsung smartphone. He needs help with his human right, his right to (data) privacy.
I have a job to perform.