what of the dreams?
published: 2013-02-15In a different life, it feels, I felt myself becoming sick. And sicker. I was so tired that I could not lift my arms. A friend would have to wash my hair for me. O It turned out my arms were paralyzed due to a lyme infection.
I remember the day my GP told me to go to emergency room. That night in hospital, I started hallucinating. I kept hearing my name and felt it was such a strange name. But take any word, repeat it over a thousand times and it’ll sound bizarre.
There was a nurse with dreadlocks and lots of bling. He hovered around me all night, said things I can’t remember. There were a lot of beeps and clicks. The next morning, he looked at my hands and said: red or swollen cuticles are a sign of infection in your system.
I was released out of hospital two weeks later. I then quit my job at the University. When I resigned, the professor I was working for poured me a glass of wine and said I was going to regret not completing my phd. I felt he was wrong. Life was too short, I thought. It was time to pursue my dreams. And so I found myself a job at a film production company.
Fifteen years later I look at my cuticles and wonder how I could have ignored their redness. It seems I may be hospitalized again, for a new infection by the same lyme. And I wonder: what of the dreams I once had?