No, I didn’t leave town in the middle of the night.
Diane and I weren’t in attendance at the annual Installation Dinner for this year’s group of inductees into the Lower Verde Valley Hall of Fame. We also missed the fund-raiser for the Fountain Hills branch of the Boys and Girls Club. As usual, I hear the event, held at the home of Tom and Tina Duffy, was another big success.
The reason we weren’t there was I was in the beginnings of an illness for the Induction Dinner and recovering from a bout with influenza Type A and pneumonia in both lungs when the fund-raiser was held.
It was a busy couple of weeks.
On Monday, March 28, it was time for my annuaI attendance at a spring training game with long-time friend and former employee, Charlie Vascellaro.
He went from writing sports at The Times while getting his journalism degree from ASU, to achieving his goal of becoming a professional baseball writer. He had stories in the Spring Training programs for the Giants and Cubs again this year.
We have shared tickets for all the Giant home games and it has become a tradition that started in 1995 to attend at least one game together. Usually it is the opener, but this year it was the final home Cactus League game of the spring training season, between the San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks. It was a night game and it turned out to be a blowout in favor of the Giants.
It looks like the Giants are going to be contenders again with this being an even-numbered year. They won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014.
We had the wedding of son Brent and his longtime girlfriend, Gina Gagliano, the previous Friday.
As I said I went to the baseball game with Charlie on Monday, the 28th. Tuesday night I went to bed feeling fine, but the next morning I had a lot of chest congestion when I woke up. I called in to say I wasn’t feeling well and would stay home that day. When I called I found out General Manager Kip Kirkendoll had already gone home. She sounded awful when I called her, and she rarely gets sick.
Reporter Bob Burns had also called in and had a chest congestion problem also. He has been out of the office for several weeks and has pneumonia. He has been hospitalized for most of that time.
Then Editor Ryan Winslett, advertising sales rep John Gibson, Classified Manager Tammie Ott, reporter Barb Charzuk and production artists David Jepson and Maria Circle called in, having similar symptoms. Only Sales Reps Duke Kirkendoll and Brent Cruikshank and Special Publications Editor Linda McThrall escaped the wrath of “The Times illness.”
John had been scheduled to be the emcee for the Hall of Fame dinner. Fortunately, former Times Editor Mike Scharnow filled in and did an outstanding job.
When I woke up Thursday morning I actually felt worse. Diane took my temperature and it was 100.8.
Diane called to get an appointment at the Mayo Clinic. My regular doctor was on vacation so I saw a young female doctor, who examined me. She said I seemed lethargic (I fell asleep while she examined me.) and recommended that I go to the hospital and check in at the emergency room.
They checked me into the Intensive Care Unit. The ICU doctor who examined me also noted I seemed lethargic and dehydrated. He ordered a cat scan, and it showed I had Influenza A and traces of pneumonia in both lungs.
He put me on both a pill for flu and an antibiotic.
I didn’t sleep a wink in the hospital that night, so I asked if there was any chance of going home.
Friday afternoon, the doctor who examined me when I checked in did another exam and said I could go home if I promised to stay hydrated and take my medicine. I told him I would and we had a week-long trip planned for going to Disney World in Florida with the grandkids beginning on April 9.
He said he would order another exam on the Friday before our trip to see how I was doing. I pretty much stayed on the couch the next seven days, taking my medicine and drinking lots of water.
By the time Friday came around, I felt pretty good and that exam went well. The doctor said she could think of better places to go for vacation that would be less exhausting than Disney World.
I agreed but the grandkids had been counting on this trip for the past four months.
Our Christmas present was two week-long passes to Disney World.
