Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (book club reads .txt) 📕

hearing “I’m pregnant,” I would have only walked back in to gather my belongings. The relationship we had was over. I was ready to move on, to take on my future and my career.

She knew I was leaving.

Now, I knew, I was staying. I said nothing about breaking up. How could I?

The week before my tryout at Trio I woke up one morning feeling like a truck hit me. A deep throbbing ache coursed through my body and I was shaking uncontrollably while sweating profusely.

I had felt increasingly ill over the past few days, but of course I had gone to work as usual. This, however, was a new level of sick. Something was really wrong.

I forced myself to the bathroom and got the shower as hot as it would go in an effort to stop the chills. I stood there shaking like I had hypothermia. I got dressed and walked into the living room, ready to go to work, when Angela felt my forehead. Despite my chattering teeth and uncontrollable chills, I was burning up.

Angela put the thermometer under my tongue. When it beeped I pulled it out and squinted to read the number. Angela peeked over my shoulder. “Grant, holy shit, 104.3! You have to go to the hospital. This is ridiculous. I’m taking you right now.”

Calling in sick to work was not an option in my book. I had never once done that in my life. Never. Then again, I was incapable of arguing with her. My body felt completely out of my control. We drove to the emergency room at Queen of the Valley Hospital.

When I walked up to the registration desk the nurse looked at me oddly. “What’s the problem?”

“Well, I c-c-can’t stop shaking. I’m freezing, but I’m sweating. I have a fever.”

“What’s your fever, sweetie?”

“It was 104.3 a few minutes ago, but I feel worse now.”

She looked worried. Never a good sign in a hospital, I thought.

I was led to a small room, and a minute later a nurse came in to do a series of diagnostic tests. She started by taking my temperature.

“It’s 104.7. Hmmm. You have a nice one going there, huh!”

“It’s climbing,” I mumbled. “It was 104.3 a while ago.”

She flashed a look of concern but continued taking my vital stats. The doctor entered shortly, looked at the chart, and led me immediately to a different room. He poked and prodded me, then ran me through a series of odd exercises, like lying on my back and instructing me to lift my head and legs at the same time. “I’m not really into yoga, doctor.” He chuckled.

“We won’t be doing yoga today. We are going to draw some blood and run some tests. It will take time for the lab to process the results, so you just rest here for a while and we’ll keep an eye on your fever.”

“How long will that take?” I asked. “I have to be at work in three hours.”

“You won’t be going in to work today, that much I can assure you.”

The nurse returned with some medicine to reduce the fever. “Does that phone work?”

“Sure. Do you need to call some relatives?”

“No. I need to call work and let them know I’ll be late.”

The nurse looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Just dial seven first. I’ll get the blood while you call.”

I held off calling, giving her my arm instead. I knew I had to tell chef Keller I would be late, but decided to hold out in case my fever went down or my blood tests came back quickly.

They led Angela in and we sat in silence, waiting. The nurses came back every thirty minutes to check my fever. It wasn’t going anywhere. Two hours in, the doctor came back. “Well, we don’t know what you have yet, but you certainly have something. Your white blood cell count is through the roof, and that means your body is fighting some type of infection. Because you have such a high fever and chills, we want to test you for meningitis.”

I had no idea what meningitis was, but it sounded serious. The tone the doctor was taking was equally serious. I was still more worried about work, however. “How long will that take, doctor?”

“You ever heard of a spinal tap?” he asked.

Holy shit, did he just say spinal tap? The doctor explained that they would have to put me on an IV drip and stick a long needle into my back to collect some spinal fluid. “It won’t hurt, but most people find it a tad scary.”

“Then what?”

“We take the fluid to the lab and have it analyzed.”

“So I can leave after the tap and have you call me with the results?”

Clearly the doctor thought I was stupid. No one leaves the hospital with possible meningitis. “Ha. No. You’ll spend the night here.”

I looked at Angela, and she could read my mind. “I can call him if you want,” she said.

I used Angela’s cell phone to call the French Laundry kitchen only twenty minutes before people would begin to wonder where I was. Eric answered, “Hey, where are you?”

“Queen of the Valley. They are running some tests on me. I have a high fever. Is Chef around?”

Thomas came to the phone, “Grant? Everything okay? Where are you?”

“Yeah, I’m at Queen of the Valley. They are running tests.”

“You didn’t look good last night. What are they saying?”

“They are worried about meningitis and are giving me a spinal tap. But I might be in later tonight if they let me go.”

“Grant! You’re in the ER. You can’t come in here if you might have meningitis! We’ll manage. Have Angela call us when they figure out what’s wrong. Feel better.”

Moments later a couple of doctors and a nurse came into the room with what looked like veterinary needles. They were huge. And just like the doctor said, I got scared.

They instructed me to lie on my side, facing away from them, and to pull my