The Two Kinds of Decay

Cured

I remember three things about the gamma globulin infusions.

The first is that when I was in Emergency for the fourth or fifth time, and my breathing had become shallow enough for Triage Level 1, and I needed another central line implanted right then, I begged for gamma instead of apheresis.

But my blood was already too poisonous to leave as it was, and the doctors said they had to replace my plasma in order to remove the antibodies that were there already, or I might stop breathing.

So even though I was sobbing and begging not to be implanted with another line, I knew it would be implanted. I was too agitated to have the surgery right at that moment, so it was decided I’d be given a half milligram of lorazepam, which is what I was given when I had a panic attack.

Because of an administrative error, I was given four times the amount of lorazepam I was usually given. And I knew it. They gave me four pills instead of the usual one, and I didn’t say anything. I was hoping I would pass out, but I didn’t. Not quite. I was sedated just enough. The regular dose wouldn’t have worked.

The second thing I remember about gamma is that during a later hospitalization, I was hooked up to a small pump, much smaller than the almost car-sized machine used for plasma exchange. At last we would see whether gamma would work.

It didn’t do a thing except slur my speech for a few hours. And so for months afterward I continued with my tedious rounds of plasma replacement to clean up the poison that I still, despite the gamma infusion, continued to secrete into my blood.

And the third thing is that in March 1996, I had another infusion, of a much higher concentration than the first two, and received the infusion while lying in a meditative state in the Outpatient Oncology ward, and felt fine, maybe a little tired, and was driven home, and by the time I got into bed my head hurt so much I vomited. And I was sick for the next couple of days, too sick to think about the gamma.

But after that week was over, the tingling and numbness in my limbs wasn’t any worse than it had been before the infusion, because the gamma had worked. Sort of. It didn’t cure me, but I didn’t relapse for four months.

The way I see it, gamma gave me three months, and Victor gave me one more after that and then some.

I didn’t tell my doctors about Victor.