She bundled me up and we called the advice nurse. While working our way through the process we checked again. This time I was 94.0 degrees.  She called 911 and a few minutes later there were strange men in my room talking to me.

 I remember being asked some usually simple questions and having difficulty answering. When he asked me what year it was and I went through 2 internal cycles before I could get the concept. It was not that the wrong answer came up, or even that I could remember what it meant to be a wrong answer. I couldn't remember how to retrieve an answer.

 My hallway is too narrow for the gurney, so they asked if they could help me walk.

 My eyes were welded closed, and as they helped me down the hall I peeked out and saw his worn brown cowboy boots I had the surreal sense of floating above them.

 They loaded me into the gurney in my front yard, in the rain.

 I learned about a new level of helplessness. The first thing they did was strap my arms down to my sides onto the gurney. Then they questioned me. I had to keep my eyes open, and I lay there with rain falling into my open eyes, unable to shield them. Instinctively, no matter how confused you might be, you know that something is seriously wrong.

 I was diagnosed with acute Norovirus( Similar to food poisoning).  At the hospital it took over 30 tries to establish an IV. I was dehydrated and hypothermic and they were trying to avoid inserting one in my jugular. In the end I was rescued from this further torture by a brusque and beautiful Polish nurse who shooed the rookies out of the way with a mumble about clearly not being able to take a break. She found the vein on the first try without being able to see or feel one by relying on her knowledge of anatomy.

 The next day, rehydrated, full of anti-nausea drugs and dilaudid, they sent me home to a diet of clear liquids. I slept for hours and when I woke up had a small moment of panic about not eating solid food for so long. And then I laughed. ‘You had better get a grip on yourself, sister. You're going to be without solid food for much longer that that’, and went back to sleep.

 It’s Day One of the medical fast and I was never hungry even for a minute. I am positively glowing with energy and hope. I had a little coffee in my mid morning shake and a lot of Siracha in my evening tomato soup. I added some pumpkin pie spice to my evening vanilla shake to create the illusion of a dessert experience.

 I felt a little speedy in the early afternoon, but since I started my day with a black coffee from Peet’s instead of homemade and took a dose of prednizone at lunch, I'm going to wait and see about that.

  I worked out after work with a new technique that I read about in an article by Gretchen Reynolds. How 1 minute Intervals can improve your Health. They addressed the question of how little exercise you need to significantly improve your health. They did an experiment to study the effects of two different types of exercise on adult sedentary people, half with heart disease. One half did 30 minutes a day of moderate stationary biking, staying in their target zone. The other did 20 minutes of 1 minute intervals. They alternated 1 minute at 90% of maximum heart rate and 1 minute of easy pedaling.

I did 10 minutes of these intervals and was sweating profusely and breathing hard but I enjoyed the workout more and feel like I got a lot more out of it. I am going to mix this technique in with the longer endurance type of workout and see where it leads me.