If you told me you were drowning...

Twice in my adult life I have come close to dying. Or at least twice that I am aware of. Who knows how many close calls and near misses we have in our daily lives that we never even know about. But anyway...twice as an adult.

The odd thing about them is they both happened in October. Just a few years apart as well. The first time I didn't realize how close I was until it was over. I had run to the grocery store and when I grabbed the cart there was a bee on the handle. I put my thumb down square on the poor guy and he responded in a completely bee like manner by stinging me. The stinger went into the joint of the thumb on my right hand. Hurt like a big dog, but I am not allergic to bees so I wasn't overly worried about it. Scraped the stinger out with a credit card, washed my hands and finished shopping. Went home, showed my owie to Brent and put some antibiotic cream on it and that was that.

My thumb hurt a little all week but nothing too much. Saturday morning (it was right around Halloween) I woke up and discovered the meaning of "sticks out like a sore thumb." My thumb was swollen and hot and I couldn't bend it or pull it into my palm so it stuck straight out to the side of my hand. I put a cold compress on it and took some Advil to try and reduce the inflammation. By Sunday morning it wasn't any better so I went to Urgent Care. By that point I was running a slight fever as well as my thumb being warm and red. After a quick examination and another washing of the thumb I got one shot of antibiotics into my arm and another into my rear end. The needle they used on my tush was (I think, going by how it felt) the size of a drinking straw! Ouch! Then I was told to go straight into my doctor's office the next morning for a follow-up.

By the next day the swelling was gone and only a little redness remained, but being a good patient (and having told Brent I was supposed to follow-up with my doctor so he made sure I did) I went in to see my primary care physician. The Urgent Care had already faxed over the records from my Sunday visit so the Nurse Practitioner (we lived in C.S. for almost 3 years and think we saw the actual doctor once) reviewed the records, took my temperature again and casually let me know if I had waited one more day to come into the doctor the blood poisoning would have spread to the point it most likely would have killed me. Ummm, what? Seems that either the bee had some dirt on his stinger or I had some dirt on my thumb and when he stung me he buried that nastiness right in my thumb joint where it festered all week and then started to spread.

The first shot I had received in Urgent Care was a fast acting antibiotic that basically got the top end bugs that were spreading, the second one was the gold standard of wide spectrum antibiotics that wipes out everything. I was dumbfounded, they hadn't said anything like that in the Urgent Care, they had just given me the shots and stressed that I go to my primary care doc. But I took it in stride when the Nurse told me and I got my follow up care instructions and left. When I went out into the parking lot I called Brent from my cell. And broke out into hysterics. Full on ugly cry, uncontrollable shaking. Delayed panic attack. Once I got it under control I made sure to go over all of the paperwork she had given me and I kept an eye on my hand for any changes over the next few days.

But everything was fine from that point on. Took about 5 years for most of the nerve damage to the thumb to heal, seems the poison in my system broke down the pathways and though nerves do grow back, they do it at a VERY slow rate. I have one patch that is still semi-numb but most of the feeling came back. Took about the same amount of time for me to not have a panic attack every time I would see a bee. I have a picture from Halloween that year, I am standing next to another woman in my office and we are both in costume, and it amazes me to think at that point in time there was a poison running through my body that could have killed me and I felt perfectly fine.

The second time I knew it was happening and even thought to myself, well this is it. We were in Hawaii combining a business trip for me with a vacation for the family mixed in. Our last full day there I went down to the beach for one more dip in the ocean. I love the ocean. I love the vastness of it. I love to sit on the shore and look out at the waves as they crash in on the shore. I love to be in the water. One of my favorite things about living in San Diego was the easy access to the ocean all summer long. The water in Oregon never really warms up enough for swimming so I tried to get in the ocean at least once a day the entire time we were in Hawaii. Christopher preferred the pool and so Brent would stay with him while I went swimming. This day wasn't any different.

There were probably 25 people in the ocean along the stretch of beach by our hotel. There was a group with a bunch of little ones towards what would be the middle stretch of beach as you looked down from the hotel and they were having a hard time controlling their wave boards. Since I wasn't boogie boarding and would rather not risk getting smacked in the head with one of their boards while wave jumping I decided that going to the right of them would be a good idea. I spent some time jumping the waves and enjoying my last stretch in the water.

Then it was time to come back in. And I couldn't. While jumping the waves and swimming I had been carried out farther than I had intended and my feet were unable to touch the ocean floor anymore. I was swimming and not going anywhere. Just swimming and swimming and staying in the same place. I did the things you are supposed to do, swim parallel to the shore, use your strongest stroke, which for me is actually the back stroke, everything you are supposed to do and I wasn't breaking free of the rip tide I was caught in and I was getting exhausted.

Scott, a friend of mine(also a client) had come down to the beach to set up beach chairs for him and his wife to have a nice drink by the ocean before the final night festivities. He saw me in the ocean and waved hello. I waved back, but not in a friendly how's it going wave, but a Help! wave. I shouted "I NEED HELP!" and to this day he isn't exactly sure that he heard me over the crash of the waves, or just could see from how I wasn't moving right that I was in trouble. He dived into the ocean and came to help.

The problem we soon discovered is that to get to me, he had to break through the edge of the whirlpool I was stuck in. So as I was stuck inside and wearing out fast, he was stuck outside and soon doing the same. The next part of the story is choppy in my memory. Like an old film reel that was poorly edited. Scott remembers parts and I remember parts and they don't always match. Eventually Scott grabbed my arm and pulled me through the edge of the whirl pool area towards him, which was deeper into the ocean. At that point we were both exhausted. I can remember telling myself not to panic and grab him, and I really remember not doing it, though he swears I almost choked him. We were still caught on the trailing edge of the pool and I could feel it trying to pull us back towards the center. And we were both too tired to swim hard away from it. Right at that point I thought...this is it. This is how I am going to die. In the ocean. I thought of Brent and Christopher up at the pool not more than a football field away from me, but completely unaware of what was happening. I thought about Scott's family and hoped that if he let go of me he would have the strength get back to the shore.

While I was getting ready to give up, Scott was still figuring out how to get us out of the mess we were in. He came up with sinking to swim. He dropped down to the ocean floor and would stand there and throw me forward. Then come back up, get a breath and pull himself forward to where I was, holding onto my legs the whole time. Then back down to the ocean floor, toss me back up, pull forward. He did this all the way up to the beach. I had to tell him we were in inches of water and he could let go before he stopped. We got back up on to the shore and looked back out at the ocean, you could see the area I had been trapped in. It wasn't very big, but the water was just swirling around and around. It looked really superficial, like if you threw a rock into it it would break up. Hard to imagine how strong it really was just by looking at it.

While we were catching our breath and freaking out Scott noticed that the daughter of one of the other franchisees and her friend were stuck on the edge of the pool. He went crashing right back into the ocean and pulled them out as well. They weren't as far in so it wasn't as hard of a swim, but they were stuck in the rocky shore area so he came out of that encounter scraped and bloody.

Imagine Laura's surprise when she came down to the beach for her relaxing evening drink to find me doubled over on a lawn chair gasping for breath too weak to walk and Scott walking up the beach soaked and bleeding. When I was able to catch my breath and my legs stopped feeling like jello I went to the pool to see Brent and Christopher and tell them what happened. Brent took Scott and Laura a couple of Coronas on the beach. I joked that it seemed a good trade, my life for a couple of beers. I also know I went into shock somewhere in that time period and spent, as best I can guess the next two days there. I kept replaying everything over and over in my head.

That night at the final night dinner everyone had heard bits and pieces of the story and wanted to hear details. I don't know how many times I told the pieces I could remember. I told everyone the important part of the story was that I would never win another argument in a co-op meeting again. Scott held the ultimate trump card. "Yeah, well, I saved your life" Argument over. One of the wives who is sweeter than she is bright told me she was glad I hadn't died because it would have really put a damper on the meeting! Well, yes, I was glad they were all spared that as well!

When we all got back to Oregon Scott and I had coffee and told each other our stories and tried to piece the whole series together. There are still chunks missing for both of us. We have no idea how long it all took. Like I said, it's much like an old film reel that was poorly edited. Everything jumps around. My biggest regret is that I didn't go back out into the ocean the next morning before we left Hawaii. I hate that my last day in the ocean wasn't a peaceful one.

I will always be grateful that Scott didn't even hesitate for a second before coming out to save me, and impressed that as exhausted as he was he didn't hesitate to go in again after two more people. Every year on the anniversary of that date I call, text or email him and just say thanks. There are not words to really capture the gratitude I feel and the debt I owe him. When people ask how you know who your friends are I can say, I know, on October 25, 2005 he proved it.

Thanks, Scott.