Another night in Paradise

I was visiting my grandmother when the phone rang, one of the last times I did before she moved in with my aunt and then into the home.  She picked it up the way she always did, not hello, or hi but “YES” in a voice more abrupt than any I heard from her in a conversation.  When she was done she hung up as she always did, no goodbye, or bye or sign off of any type the receiver was merely placed down carefully on the large dial phone.

“I’m going to need help” she said and we headed off together over her lawn.  We walked across the lawn that had shrunk over the years to the block of flats behind her house.  She pushed the door open and we found the occupant laying still, the phone still in her hand. 

She looked up and smiled at us.  “Thank you Edna” she said the smile never reaching her eyes.

“Are you ok” asked my Nana “Anything broken?”

”I don’t think so, I just fell again.”

My nana reached down to help her up and I did what I could to help.   She was thin and frail in the way that only small sick children and the very old are. I stood by unable to comment, feeling out of place.

”Are you sure you’re alright?” my Nana repeated. 

”Yes, I was over in the kitchen” she pointed to the other end of the flat “and then I just got spinney and toppled over.”

“This is dangerous Gladys, you can’t be alone.”

”I called my son, he’s coming over.”

”How did you get to the phone?” My Nana had that voice, the one you reserve for the incompetent, the immature or the old.

“I dragged myself over.  It’s ok Edna. I’ll be fine.  I’ll just sit here the phone and wait for Harold, he’ll be her soon.”

”Are you sure Gladys?”


”Yes, thank you.  I’m not going to get up.”

”All right. I’m going head off now; if you need me pick up the phone.”

”Yes Edna”

I followed my Nana back towards her house with a new respect.  My grandma wasn’t as old as I had always believed; she was the one who had to rescue her neighbours.  “Does this happen often?”  I asked looking for something to say, a way to break the silence that always seemed to surround this stranger I had known my whole life.

“Yes” she offered the monosyllable.

“That’s not good”

“She shouldn’t be alone.” And we walked back to my grandmother’s house where she had lived alone for 10 years since the death of my grandfather.

I was getting the kids to bed, late but that’s how it is right after the school holidays.  We were all in the bath and I realized it was 9 already so we all jumped out.  I wrapped a towel around the youngest, threw another at the oldest and grabbed another off the shelf for myself.  It was one of those routine moments where you don’t pay attention to what you are doing, you just go through the movements like you have a million times before, at least until the burning pain hit me.

I yelled for my oldest.  She saw it first, walking out of the folds of my fallen towel, a two inch black female scorpion.  I took a bottle of conditioner and began to beat it, it moved slower, still alive, still wriggling its tail around.  Undulating shafts of pain radiated out into my back.  Julie ran to the kitchen and grabbed the tongs.  I lifted the scorpion into the toilet and flushed her flaying body down into the septic system. 

”Where did she go” asked my baby.

"Out to the garden.”

”Will she bite me when I go out there?”

”No baby.”

I still wanted to scream.  All I could think was it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, oh god, it hurts…

“Go get dressed baby and get in bed.”

I hauled myself out to the sofa and lay down waiting for the pain to fade but it just continued spreading, its fingers seeking out into my body.  After a half hour I put some ice on it, just in case the pain would ease.  The kids weren’t asleep and I didn’t care.  Julie looked at my back.

”It didn’t look like that when I got stung.”

”How does it look?”

“All red and swollen.”

It was at this point I realized I couldn’t feel my lips, or tongue.  It was like Novocain wearing off.  And with the numbness came the fear. My kid had never complained of a numb mouth.    I went to the phone and rang the doctor.

“It sounds like you are having an allergic reaction to the scorpion” he said.

“OK.”  The panic was growing while the pain continued to spread.

”You can drive?”

”Yes”

”Come to the clinic in 20 minutes, the ambulance driver is there, he can give you the shot.”

I dressed the kids and myself and started to drive.  My hands were numb now, a tingling kind of numb which we call numb but I could still feel them, pin prickles of sensation shot through them, while the pain in my back had eased to a constant burning ache.  When I reached the doctor I was beginning to lose sensation in my feet and my nose.

I lay down, pulled down trousers and while my kids looked a new pain shot through my buttocks as the needle was injected.  “You’ll be fine in half an hour, but the shot will make you sleepy” the EMT assured me in Spanish.

I paid the bill and drove my kids home.  I put them to bed and lay down with them and lost consciousness.  An hour later I awoke gasping, my throat was swollen and I felt awful.  I staggered to the phone and called the doctor again.  “I can’t feel my legs at all, I can barely walk.  My throat feels all swollen”

“It’s from the scorpion, it could last all night.  Are you having trouble breathing?”

”What do you do?”

”Well if you can’t breath we would send the ambulance and take you to the hospital.”

I could just see it, my kids woken from their sleep. I had no one to look after them; they would watch while the EMT cut my throat open, placed a tube and took me away.  I couldn’t do that to them.  I was still breathing; I could still talk to the doctor, right?  I could call if it got worse.

“Ok”

”Call if you have trouble breathing.”

I lay in front of the television waiting for the pain to end, waiting for the numbness to wear off. The swelling of my throat seemed to spread into my neck and I found myself mouth open gasping.    Don’t panic I told myself.  Don’t panic.  This will pass, I will be ok, I am not going to need to go to the hospital.  Don’t panic.  I started to practice my yoga breathing, through my nose, slow and deep.  It’s like an asthma attack I realized, just breath, breath. The air seemed to be going in fine so long as I didn’t use my mouth.

I thought about calling the doctor again, but I couldn’t walk to the phone and what could he do but sent the ambulance and take me away.  My kids needed me and there was no-one else to be there with them.  I felt so alone.

The attack passed, my throat opened and I breathed.  Don’t panic, you will be ok, it will be ok.  This will pass, by morning I’ll be fine.

I forced myself to stay awake, to concentrate on my breathing, to get through the night to make sure I was still breathing.  Yoga may have saved my life, focus on the breath, don’t panic, it will be ok, and as the night went on the attacks came. My throat would close, you won’t die, I told myself; force the air in, through the nose down into the belly.  Think about it, every breath a conscious effort.

I might die.  Don’t think about it.  You can always call the ambulance.  But what about the kids?  Don’t think about it.  Breathe.  Breathe.  In, out.  DON'T PANIC. You will survive.  It will pass the night will end, you will be able to breath again without effort, you will feel your feet again, your tongue, mouth, hands.  All swollen with insensitivity.   If forced myself to stay awake about 3 am I could feel my hands and feet again and I thought I would be ok, so I went to bed.

And as I lay in my bed trying to calm my shivering nerves, my suppressed sense of panic.  I knew I could have died.  I knew I had never come closer.  I realized I had probably been stupid and should probably have been in the hospital for the last four hours.  But I was alone, and without me my kids would be alone.  And I wondered if we die alone or if we die because we are alone.