Hopping to see you Wednesday Night

By Neal S. Mehr
I haven’t been to a meeting in almost two years. It’s not that I haven’t thought about going; in fact, I’ve had a lot of time to think about a lot of things.
On February 4th of this year, I came home after an absence of 523 days. I’ve changed a little, lost some weight, about 14 pounds of which used to be my left leg.

My wife Jeanette and I went on vacation in August of 2009. We flew into Nairobi Kenya to go on a long awaited African Safari. We flew on a small plane to Meru National Park, and then went to the Paradise Lodge. We had a great time touring and seeing the sites and wildlife. I’ll write about that later, but now only one story matters.

With only a few days left on our trip we went out on the Lodges’ four wheel drive Range Rover. We drove along the Tana River and stopped for a luxury safari picnic. After lunch I wandered off towards the river bank into the high weeds. I’d like to say just like in a bad novel, “I came face to face with the creature.” To tell the truth, I don’t remember what the crocodile looked like. Either I never saw the crocodile or my mind blocked it out.

I was told later that I was flown to a hospital in Nairobi. After four days I was flown back to Chicago. I have no memory of this. I was in shock.

After sometime in Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, I was awake and alert. They told me that a Nile crocodile snapped off my left leg below the knee. I didn’t have an easy time after that. The crocodiles’ mouth is filled with a variety of diseases, salmonella, mycobacterium and other bacteria. The crocodiles also harbor viral diseases, such as the pox virus, herpes virus and hepatitis.

I spent a long time in the hospital and nursing home/rehab center. They tried to isolate the many bacteria that infected me. Crocodile bites aren’t that common in Park Ridge. The doctors used antibiotics to fight my infections. Unfortunately, I was allergic to four of the antibiotics. Bad reactions caused sepsis, kidney failure and seizure. I recovered from all those. I had a total of ten operations and the rest of my leg was taken off above the knee.

I’m doing quite well now. I’m in outpatient rehab at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago in Northbrook. I have a prosthesis and use a walker. By the meeting in July, I’ll be using a cane.

This is the most I’ve written in two years, more will be coming.