(c) 1984 Nick Dallett
"Have a nice day, and good luck with that window," said the woman behind the counter, and I walked out of the stained-glass supply shop and into the dim midmorning light, two pieces of iron reinforcing bar in one hand. The store was in Sequim, and I had seven hours before the next bus could take me back to Port Townsend, thirty-one miles away, where I live. Saturday schedule.
I was in a hurry to finish the window I was working on. I should have waited until Monday, when the busses ran Regular, but my friend Eve, for whom I was making the window, was coming home from Europe in a few days, and I wanted to surprise her with it.
An art fair was in town that day, and I wanted to include that in my plans. I had an hour and a half before it started, though, so I decided to investigate whatever thrift stores I could find.
I went through two, not finding anything of real interest, except a not-too-battered copy of a YES album I didn't have, which I now carried in a paper sack. I put the rebar in the sack-it stuck out a foot, but I could carry both in one hand this way.
The woman at the stained-glass shop had given me vague directions to the art fair, and I took off down the road she had indicated. It was a beautiful walk, down a narrow country, road, shady and few cars.
The shoulder of the road was banked, the earth dark and fertile. Ferns proliferated underneath tall green conifers. I thought I heard water just the other side of the bank, and I listened to it as I walked along, wondering about the source of the sound. Finally, my curiosity overwhelmed my desire to get somewhere.
Looking over the bank, I saw a small creek, perhaps four feet wide, and running parallel to the road. Moss grew on the banks, and algae trailed in the water. On the far side of the stream grew a large number of small white mushrooms. The mushrooms seemed to call to me; an experience I'd had before. I seem to have some sort of affinity for them.
Leaving my backpack and paper sack by the roadside, I lunged for the far bank and landed in a heap just out of the water. The first thing I did was check the bases of the mushrooms for signs of a volva, the white sac that identifies the deadly poisonous Amanitas. They were conspicuously absent. I had a small nylon bag in my jacket pocket, and I filled it with the mushrooms before leaping back across the stream and clambering over the bank.
I sat down by the roadside. I was hungry, tempted to eat the mushrooms right away, but I still wanted to make quite sure they were not poisonous before snacking. I ate half of one, figuring to wait an hour and test for sickness before I ate the rest.
I had come about two miles down the road now, and was beginning to wonder whether the fair was within walking distance at all. I asked a boy on a bicycle whether I was going the right way, and he said oh no, I was all wrong. It was in the opposite direction. So I turned and went the way I had come.
I had expected a large grassy common full of outdoor booths, food stands, frolicking children, and beautiful girls. What I found instead was a small squat building full of wrinkled and pale people who trudged from booth to booth staring blankly at paint-by-number oils and drawings of neighbors' cats. Furthermore, the moment I walked in, I was accosted by a woman with a name tag who told me 1 had come in the wrong door and must go out and come in again on the opposite side. Finding that I didn't plan on making a donation, she let me be. I took a quick tour of the building and left.
I had expected to spend several hours looking at fine craftsmanship, eating, drinking beer, playing in the sun, and flirting with the beautiful girls. Instead, I spent five minutes looking at some rather scrawny ducks in a pond. At least an hour had gone by, and I felt fine, so I took out the nylon bag and helped myself to another couple of mushrooms.
I killed another hour of time finding and browsing through a garage sale. It was in this woman's living room. I bought a shirt. Men's short sleeve button-down. Pink.
When I stepped out of the house, I couldn't see. It was very sudden. I thought at first that my eyes were having trouble adjusting to the light outside. They wouldn't focus. It was as if the lenses had suddenly fallen out of my glasses. Everything was blurry. Then I noticed my neck was tight. I thought that maybe fatigue was causing both symptoms. I did some head rolls to loosen my neck. I didn't stop walking. I got to the highway, and wasn't sure where to go or what to do. I wanted to sit down until my vision cleared, but I wasn't sure it would at all.
I got to a phone booth and called the bus company in Port Townsend. I needed to find out where I could catch the bus to get home. The woman who answered didn't know. I was feeling sort of cold. I noticed the wind blowing, and the sky overcast.
My vision was not getting better. It was getting worse. Coming up close to street signs, I couldn't read the words on them. This was with my glasses on. Without them, I figured I was probably legally blind. I started thinking about Beethoven going deaf at twenty-four, and I wondered if I could cope with being blind at twenty. I imagined myself standing on the street in darkness, calling out for someone to help me get home. I wondered if anyone would help.
I wondered if I would die. I thought about death and if I was ready for it. It seemed strange to be suddenly faced with death. I actually felt a sense of relief. My only worry was for my Mother and my friends. I hoped they would understand that I was not taken unwillingly.
I remembered a dream I had once. My best friend poisoned me, and I had an hour and a half to live. I was trying to compose a note to Allisen, the girl I was infatuated with. All I could say was "This is probably the last note I'll ever write you." I wondered if I had an hour and a half to live. It seemed like a long time.
I started walking back towards the edge of town. I figured I'd hitchhike back to Port Townsend, and get to the hospital. Then everything would be okay.
I stood at the city limit for about a half hour with my thumb out. I was feeling pretty lousy. I had begun to sweat and my knees were weak. I tried taking my jacket off, but it was cold, and I didn't stop sweating.
I was by a restaurant, and I thought about going in and puking in the toilet. Maybe if I got the mushrooms out of my stomach, I'd get better. The thought of throwing up disgusted me. Plus, I didn't want to miss a possible ride home.
No cars were stopping. Finally, I got so weak I thought I was going to collapse on the road. I went into the restaurant and told a waitress that I needed a phone to call a doctor. I felt like I was being much too calm for a poisoning victim. I worried that she would think I was trying to get a free call. She directed me to the bar manager, who directed me to a payphone in the hall. I felt like I was dying, and nobody seemed to believe me.
I dialed the operator and asked for an ambulance. I told her I had eaten poison mushrooms, and she tried to connect me with a poison control line. She seemed panicky. The poison control person didn't know anything about mushrooms. I didn't understand why they couldn't call me an ambulance.
I got the operator back. I told her where I was, and I asked for her to please get me an ambulance. I said I was very sick and I needed to get to a hospital. She couldn't find any listings. I couldn't believe that she didn't have the number at hand. I heard her conferring with someone else. I was feeling worse, and didn't know if I could even hold on to the phone any longer. I thought I was going to die while waiting for the operator to get her act together.
Finally she came back on. "Do you need an aid vehicle?" she said. "Yes," I said. I couldn't believe her stupidity.
I felt somewhat better when an official sounding voice came on to ask me where I was, what my symptoms were, and how long I had been in this state. I repeated everything. They told me to sit tight, that they'd get to me as soon as possible.
I heard the siren almost immediately, and several uniformed men came into the restaurant. One carried a first aid kit. Another carried a clipboard. The one took my pulse and blood pressure while the other asked me questions, jotting down the answers on the clipboard.
My blood pressure was 140 over 90.
We got in the ambulance, and took off. I asked them if they could take me to the hospital in Port Townsend. They said they worked out of Port Angeles, another 17 miles out of my way. Great.
They contacted the hospital right away on the radio, and whoever was in charge told them to give me x ccs of ipecac. The guy with the clipboard continued to take down information. He took my blood pressure again. It was down to 90 over 40. They relayed this information to the hospital, and told them I was diaphoretic. "What's that mean?" I asked. "It means you're sweating," he replied. I liked that. I made a mental note to write that down when I got home. If I got home.
"Ipecac. That's an emetic, right?"
"You got it"
"Does it taste bad?"
He shrugged. "You tell me."
I downed the small bottle he handed me. It tasted good. I'd kind of expected it to be so bad I'd puke right away. He checked his watch and marked down the time. "How you doing?"
"I'm kind of chilly."
He turned up the heat. He gave me a glass of water to chase down the Ipecac. Then he got a bucket and a towel and handed them to me. I didn't have to ask what those were for.
"How long's it take before I puke?" The vulgarity of the word felt great in my mouth.
"That depends. Some people it takes up to ten minutes. It comes up suddenly, though, so keep that bucket in front of you."
"I'm really glad you guys are here." I meant it. It felt good to talk so I kept going. "What's this going to cost me? I mean, I do plan on coming out of this alive." I was the only one who laughed. He wouldn't tell me what the ride cost.
It was more than ten minutes before I started to puke. In fact, we were already pulling up to the hospital. I took pride in my resistance. I took the bucket with me. I had walked onto the ambulance, but they made me lie still on a gurney while they wheeled me into the hospital.
They put me in a room and hooked me up to an EKG. I kept throwing up for a while after that. They took my shirt off and gave me a hospital gown to wear. I wasn't quite as diaphoretic as I had been, so I started to warm up a little now that I was dry. My vision was still shot. There was an eye chart on the wall, and I could barely read the "E" at the top. I knew from years of wearing glasses that the second line read "N-E-H-U-R-S-P-D", but that wasn't very comforting.
The EKG wasn't anything like on T.V. It blipped every time my heart beat, but every time I moved, an alarm went off and the thing would spew out half a roll of paper. The first time it happened, I thought my heart had stopped beating. Later the nurse told me it was just the connections coming loose.
When Doctor Tordini finally came in, the first thing he did was hold up the bag of mushrooms, which I had given to the paramedics. "These are not liberty caps. Do you know that?"
"Yes. I wasn't looking for those in the first place."
That was the end of the lecture, but I wanted him to know I knew a little more about mycotoxins than your average pothead.
"The toxins seem to be affecting my sympathetic nervous system," I told him, "My eyes are dilated, my blood pressure is fluctuating, and I'm. . .um, diaphoretic. Obviously a class II Mycotoxin. I would suspect Muscarine."
He didn't even flinch. "Probably not muscarine. It would tend to have a depressing effect on your heart rate. Your heart is racing."
He called for the nurse, and instructed her to give me activated charcoal, if I could keep it down. She asked me if I wanted to take it straight, or with seven-up.
"These tablets?"
She told me it was a liquid. "Most people find it's easier to get down."
I told her I'd try it with water. I figured I'd just toss it down and wash the taste away with the water.
The activated charcoal came in small plastic jars, and was a lot thicker than I expected. It was more like paste. I tried a small amount. It was not so much the worst tasting stuff I'd ever had as the worst feeling stuff. The texture made me think I was drinking asphalt. I shuddered violently. I did not want that stuff in my mouth. I forced down a couple of small mouthfuls, and looked up at the nurse with what must have been a pitiful face.
"Shall I get you some seven-up?"
I nodded, mouth full of black dirt. The seven-up didn't help. If anything, the charcoal just ruined the seven-up. I managed to force down a little bit more charcoal, and then it started to come back up. I spent another few minutes throwing up again. "That ipecac's not quite through with me."
"Want to try some more charcoal?"
I shook my head. "I don't think I can keep it down. Is there another way?"
She went off to consult the doctor. He came back and took my blood pressure again. He asked me how I felt, and I said I felt quite a bit better. I asked him if he needed a urine sample, and if not, could I use the bathroom? He said I might as well not waste it, and he got me a sample bottle. It felt good to walk down the hall. I was still weak, and the people in the waiting area looked at me the way people in waiting rooms look at sick people in hospital gowns, but it felt good to be on my feet, not to mention the relief to my bladder.
I was noticing on the way back to the room that my vision was improving. That was a relief. When I got back, the nurse asked me for my urine sample, and I got to walk back down the hall again. I had fantasies of taking the wrong bottle and finding out I had diabetes. I felt sorry for anyone who had used the bathroom after me and before I retrieved the bottle.
I told the doctor my vision was coming back, and he said I could go when it was back to normal. I asked him if he was doing any lab tests on the mushrooms. He said no, but he would send them to the lab if I had any recurrence of symptoms or any related symptoms during the next few days.
When my vision returned, and I felt a little stronger, I got up. I looked at the clock. I had been in the hospital for two hours. It had seemed like a quarter of that. I picked up my shirt. It was still too wet to put on. I asked the nurse if there was a dryer I could use. She laughed.
As I put on the pink, men's short-sleeved button-down shirt, I thought "Boy, I'm glad I went to that garage sale."