Yet here I am, on the cusp of a new year full of opportunities for more, and I’m already off on another fresh venture: I was hospitalized with what appeared to be a fairly serious blood infection. At the moment I’m marveling at the state of modern medicine and remembering a terrific experience. Intravenous tubes dripped various unpronounceable antibiotics into each arm. But just about the time I was led to say, “Wow, that was new!” I thought, “Here we go again.”

Just exactly a year ago I was in a similar pickle: same leg, same kind of infection, same hospital and floor, same armfuls of plastic tubes, same confidence in the outcome. It had even the same onset: several hours on a bedroom floor, the arrival of help, the friendly folks in the emergency room, and a bed looking out onto a view of a flat roof with pumps, tubes, and machinery. A white board on the wall across from the foot of the bed displayed pertinent information like: patient’s name, room number, the names of the attending staff from the supervising physician to the nurses, blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygenation, and the time I was last turned (N/A).

This one began on the floor of my bedroom, just like the last, except unlike the last one, there was no one else there but Kiki. I got up to go to the john at (according to my cell phone, which I routinely consult) 3:40 in the morning. Obviously, I never made it, but instead woke up again about 8:30 thinking, “Gee! I never knew my bed to be so uncomfortable! My neck is killing me. I better get some Tylenol.” I tried to roll over, but couldn’t, and slowly realized that the hard bed was instead a hard cherrywood floor, and that I was between my reclining chair and the bed. Oh… It soon became clear that I couldn’t get up, and couldn’t even roll over.

But alone in the house as I usually am, and considering all that possibly can go wrong during any daily activity, I try to stay within earshot of Siri, on my cell phone, or my wrist watch. So it was the work of but a moment to call my son-in-law, who was busy in Barre, and ask him for a lift. He came pretty quickly, along with my daughter, got me vertical (if shaky), got me into my sweats and into my daughter’s car, and off we went. The folks in the emergency room couldn’t have been more pleasant or friendly. They logged me in, asked pertinent questions, and bade me take a seat.

To someone who can remember hospital lighting that was clearly converted from natural gas, slow elevators with steel-grid-doors that folded upon themselves with great clashing, and tall, single-paned windows with dark green blackout shades, a modern hospital is almost like a science fiction movie. Automatic doors, white low-energy lighting everywhere, and computer screens by the dozen. Two cheerful nurses showed up, got me into the hateful jonny without making me take off my sweatpants, laid me carefully in the bed, and began jotting information on the white board.

Even in my reduced state of grogginess, I could only marvel at the precision of the place’s design, the location of the air-conditioning vents, the ready access to electrical outlets (and now USB ports). What a job it must be to draw the plans and estimates for all this; and what a job it must be to install all of them before covering the wall framing in sheetrock and the overhead utilities among the trusses before the dropped ceiling was hung. It was a feast for the eyes and brain of an old carpenter.

But it is a hospital, after all, so the work of diagnosis and treatment started in. This invariably involves sticking needles in everywhere, attaching devices, and taking temperature. After about two days of it, I decided that when I got out, I’d stand in front of a bright light to see if I cast a spotted shadow.

Blood pressure was apparently the major problem. I’d never seen it so low. The infusion tubes in both arms were busy. Blood tests were frequent. There were other rooms where I was x-rayed, MRI’d, and something I don’t understand. But they got me ready to leave just as my lovely friend Bea showed up from Nahant to drive me home. Which is where I am now. She, too. What a week, and what a lovely ending!