The problem that remains is that the urine culture came back negative, so the actual cause has not been definitively established. A urinary system CAT Scan revealed a thickening of the bladder wall in one area and puddling, which suggests that the bladder had not cleared fully in the past and that there have been past infections that I did not recognize as infections. This one became serious and for some reason passed over into the blood supply, where it was becoming fatal. It has no correlation with age or where one puts one’s willie. Because men’s urinary systems are more complicated, their infections are more complicated than women’s. (A urology consultation is forthcoming.)

I spent the next three days at St. Mary’s, and I lived. Slowly the fever went down, the white count went down to normal, the IV’s did their jobs, and I regained strength enough to come home on a very powerful antibiotic for rest and recovery, which may take yet another two or three weeks.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of my time at St. Mary’s was the nature of the care I received from my doctor and from the nursing staff. I had expected that a “hospitalist,” not my own doctor, would attend to me, but my own physician was there attending to me each morning and each evening. He truly cared about me not only as a patient but as a human being about whom he cared personally. He not only wanted me to survive. He wanted me to survive, me, Langston. That kind of care brings tears to the eyes.

Similarly, I expected a professional level of nursing care from the nursing staff, and I received that. Beyond that, however, I received nurturing from the nursing staff, nurturing of me as a human being who needed nurturing at that time if I ever needed it as an adult, care about me as an individual human being, not just a patient.