TURNING POINT

At the end of my sophomore year, Britte, Meryl, and I traveled across the country together. Our destination was New York, where they would see me off to Spain on a student ship, the Aurelia, for my junior year abroad. We went north to Seattle first, then headed east through Canada, where we camped until I came down with tonsillitis. Foolishly, I asked the doctor I saw to give me pills, not a shot, because I remembered from my childhood that the injections in my bottom were painful.

Day after day, as we traveled, my condition worsened. My fever soared and my throat became hugely swollen, until swallowing was so excruciating it brought tears to my eyes. I took the maximum dose of aspirin every four hours, but that only provided relief for an hour or two. Eventually I became so nauseous from all the aspirin that I couldn’t always keep it down. By evening I was so hysterical with pain, I asked Britte to take me to the nearest hospital. She called one and talked to a doctor, who said to get some aspirin with codeine, which was sold over the counter in Canada, and if my fever didn’t break by morning to bring me to the emergency room.

Instead of camping, we stayed in a motel, and Britte and I shared a double bed. All through a long night I woke up repeatedly, and every time I did, I found her awake, as though keeping vigil over me. She was so solicitous, so devoted that I felt cared for in a deeper way than I’d ever experienced before. By morning the penicillin had kicked in and my fever had broken.