PEGGY FIELDING'S NEWSLETTER
Vol. 7 Number 2 February 2007

YOU STILL KNOW THE DRILL

Go now to the archives at www.peggyfielding.com, so you can see the stuff Dan has inserted into this letter. The e-mail copy is really quite unattractive in comparison.

SHORT AND TO THE POINT

You may have already heard. I had a stroke and have been in stir. (Translate, hospital and rehab.)

Early morning Jan 31, 3:00 am, I felt the urge to go to the bathroom. I put my feet out and my legs slid out from under me like boiled spaghetti. I landed on my rump. Nothing hurt. I tried several times to pull myself up, scooted all around the bedroom doing that. Finally, I pulled the telephone down onto my chest and located "o" with a finger.

When the operator answered I said, "I hate to be trite, but I've fallen and I can't get up."

She chuckled, then asked, "Shall I call the firemen for you?"

"Now, why would I want firemen?" I asked. Thinking she might have misunderstood me.

"They pick people up all the time," she assured me.

"Send them," I said, "But my front and back door are locked."

"They'll get in," she said, and ten minutes later I heard three male voices drifting through my house, and saw three flashlight beams moving in the dark.

I was wearing the most frowzy of my bras and the most beat up of my panties. (Shades of Miss Hazel's warning about being dressed decently in case of an accident.) So I called, "Turn on the lights gentlemen. I am in the bedroom. I apologize for my appearance."

The lights went on and quite near me were a big, big guy, a middle-sized guy and a little guy. "We've seen much worse, ma'am," the mid-sized man said.

"I'm fat, so I am sure it will be a chore to get me up from here. I apologize for that also, gentlemen. It may take all of you to do it."

"We pick up people every night," the small guy said, and the mid-ized guy lifted me up as if I were a kitten, and bam, I was on my feet. Wow!

I walked to the bathroom and did my thing, then came out and gave each man a book for his mother, CHIK~LIT FOR FOXY HENS, and signed my novella, chatted about the book for a few minutes, sent them on their way and walked to the door behind them to lock it as they left. I got back in bed and slept 'til morning.

I called Jackie to ask her to call Dr. Grewe. He told her to take me to the ER. I resisted that notion. In denial I said, "I'm fine Jackie. I'm walking around. I'm not going to the hospital. That evening my drink of Dr. Pepper slipped through my left hand and shattered in a million pieces. I cleaned it up, sitting in my chair. I knew I was in trouble.

Next morning, I called Jackie and told her to come and get me to take me to the hospital. Then I looked outside and we were in the midst of a blizzard. I tried to call her to stay home but she was already on her way.

Soon, she came in, boots and coat and all. She allowed me no mercy. She called EMSA and before I knew it I was strapped to an iron table and shoved into the back of an ambulance, on my way to the hospital. She didn't even allow me to take my purse.

The men left me in a room on another iron table where I stayed all day. Jackie soon came and stayed all day with me. We promoted our book to every person who entered the room. We even worked out a routine, where I would ask if she had a bookmark and she always did. Kind of fun but boring for both of us, wondering what, if anything, they were going to do to me.

As they say in the Philippines, "Jackie is an good girl."

AS TO MY LOVELIFE DURING THAT PERIOD

Nothing much. No books from Dusty, nothing except a little "do-it-yourself" stuff. I did ask Romney Nesbitt, our "roadie" who is also a Presbyterian minister, if my tiny foray into "self satisfaction" the day before the stroke, had caused God's wrath to descend on my old bod.

Love, Peggy