We're Back on our Feet
Bouts of searing abdominal pain tortured me from my late teens until I was almost fifty. There were times it was so crippling I was brought to a fetal position when shopping or out with a girlfriend. The only thing a doctor told me was that I had a spastic colon. I learned to live with it.
That’s why I thought little of the pain and fever I came down with during the summer I signed a contract to write Following Atticus. I was battered by cramps and high temperatures for a good five or six days. On the seventh day, I rose again. By the eighth, Atticus and I climbed a couple of local mountains. We'd hike the next, too, even though my gut was still giving me problems. Then, it became more severe. Finally, when I truly felt like I was going to die, I dialed 9-1-1, and an ambulance took Atticus and me to North Conway's Memorial Hospital.
Soon after a friend came to grab Atti, I passed out. I was brought around by a shot of epinephrine.
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