Hawaii

The day after I arrived home, my Mom, Dad, my two younger brothers (James (Jamie) and Peter), and Jamie’s wife Dana and I flew together from Sacramento to Maui. We would meet my older sister Monica (Mimi) and her family, and my older brother, Mike, and his girlfriend there. HAWAII! This was not one of our usual family vacations, this one was very special. Each year we got together and camped or rented a house. We never flew anywhere. It was always somewhere that could be driven to in a day. All 13 of us got on airplanes. We had four condos and four rented cars. I slept on the plane ride over, but I didn’t know that would be sleeping through most of the week.
The first day there, we checked in and everyone played on the beach. I sat on the beach and rested and watched my family play because I was still tired. I was saving my energy for all the things Pete and I had planned months before. Mom and Dad went grocery shopping.
The next morning, I was jerked awake by my shoulder, and I thought my arm rose forcefully up into the air. I was so tired that I wasn’t sure what was happening with my arm. What happened? I didn’t quite know. I quickly went back to sleep. It happened again. I noticed it a little more this time. My jerking left arm woke me up several more times that morning. Weird.
I was too tired to do anything. I stayed in bed and slept while my siblings snorkeled, hiked, and completed the list that Pete and I had made. I was glad they went without me, I didn’t want them to worry and I wanted them to enjoy Hawaii. But they worried and snorkeled at the same time. While I slept, Mom and Dad stayed with me in the condo and got nervous. Occasionally they would go to the beach just outside our condo for a walk or a little snorkeling. Sleep. Sleeping. Slept.
The morning following the jerking arm morning, I got up to visit with my family before they scattered over Maui. When I got up, I was unstable on my feet; my balance was off. My speech was also not quite right. I had a mild slur, like I was drunk. My siblings watched me nervously then went about their vacation, except Mimi. She stayed back that day. I took a shower and almost passed out for some reason.
Mimi’s father-in-law is a general practitioner in Los Angeles. He was consulted. The events of the last few weeks were explained. He said that it sounded like post-viral cerebellitis. It seemed I had had the flu and cerebellitis matched my symptoms well. This is an inflammation of the cerebellum, the part of the brain responsible for motor coordination. He told Mom and Dad to take me to the emergency room.
The next morning we went to Maui Memorial Hospital. We waited about an hour before getting a bed in the emergency department. The doctor examined me and ordered a lot of tests: blood, EKG, CT scan of my brain, MRI of my head and a chest X-ray. At this point, I wasn’t very familiar with these tests. In the MRI machine, they put on headphones with music because the machine makes a lot of noise. The technician asked what kind of music I’d like. “Hawaiian.”
The test results were all within normal limits. He couldn’t find anything wrong. I was healthy, but I acted drunk. He said to see a neurologist when I got home. We looked at the discharge papers as we left the hospital. Diagnosis: general weakness.
As everyone explored the island, I spent most of the rest of the vacation in bed, sleeping about 15 to 20 hours per day. Mom and Dad hovered around as I slept, their apprehension growing. When I was in Montana, I told them how tired I was and how much I was sleeping, but it was even stranger when they saw it in person. Mom says that I have a tendency to understate things, so when she was so far away she wasn’t really sure what was going on.
I wasn’t in the condo for the whole time. I ventured out briefly on several occasions. I went down to the beach one evening to toss the football with my little brothers. I tried to run over to catch a pass but just fell into the sand. We laughed at the sight of me, falling into the sand, lying in the sand. It was funny and concerning at the same time, but the beach was a good place to fall down. I also wanted to buy some souvenir gifts for friends in Montana. Mom and Dad took me into a gas station for this. I had to shop really fast because of my limited energy and I made quick decisions which I would normally linger over as a souvenir addict. I also had to sit on the gas station floor for a few minutes to regain energy to finish picking out junky souvenirs.
Each evening I woke up to the stories of the day, fancy fish, turtles, big waves, sunburns, trails, they did it all. Mom and Dad felt sorry for me. They took me for a drive along the coast to a spot where I could get out of the car and just steps away I could look down into the water and see little yellow fish swimming around. This was snorkeling for the very sleepy. Poor Mom and Dad.
With all of the cameras taken on the trip only one image of me exists (unless you count the MRI, CT scan and X-ray). The Polaroid was taken on the beach below our condo by a woman with a parrot on her shoulder and several leis on her neck. The cost was ten dollars. She put the leis over our heads, handed over the parrot and froze our image. I got to hold the parrot. When I look at the picture now, it stops me. There are six faces there: three generations and one parrot. On the sandy beach with the sea in the background, billowing clouds, a few rocks in the surf, some shadows in the foreground, dreamy lighting and sunspots on the print, well-arranged bodies, festive outfits, bare feet, smiles.