(Continued from previous post.)

Hannah’s itching quickly escalated into a full force attack of the mysterious hives she’d been plagued with. She flagged down an emergency ride to her hotel, then took her medicine, and even the epipen. The people at the hotel tried to help her, but she kept passing out–though they tried to catch her, she would fall and hit her head. This happened at least three times.

Meanwhile, back in the states, I was recording music and living a life of quiet desolation. Then the phone rang.

The doctor told me Hannah had been helicopter evacuated to an emergency hospital and . . . .

Well, then I passed out.

That stuff you see in the movies where the lady gets the bad news and faints? Well, I’m no lady, but that’s me. I pass out as soon as I get horrible, horrible news of this sort.

When I woke up, the back of my skull hurt, because I’d smashed it on the tile floor here at our house. I picked up the phone and . . .

the doctor was still talking. He hadn’t noticed I’d passed out! He had just kept talking.

So there I sat, listening to a stranger tell the tale: my wife in a hospital, more than 10,000 miles away. At that point, I thought, if she doesn’t come back, my life is over.

(to be continued tomorrow)