Meghan Daum lives to tell about being 'off'

For the last three Thursdays, the L.A. Times has run a notice saying columnist Meghan Daum has the day off. Her column today reveals what's really been up. She spent 11 harrowing days in the hospital with typhus, which she apparently picked up in her Pasadena backyard. Four of those days she was intubated in intensive care. It all began with flu-like symptoms.

I received two platelet transfusions, one blood transfusion, a spinal tap, three EEGs, three MRIs, two CT scans and round-the-clock infusions of four kinds of antibiotics. I had liver failure, kidney trouble and meningoenchephalitis, a swelling of the brain and the lining around it. I had a breathing tube and a feeding tube. Friends and family gathered at the hospital. My father jumped on a plane from New York. My husband, though he rarely left my side, was beside himself. At one point, my platelet count, which is supposed to be somewhere around 200,000, was 14,000. That meant there was a high risk of spontaneous internal bleeding.

And then I woke up. I had no idea the relief — and in some cases the surprise — this produced in the people around me. As far as I was concerned, I had some kind of flu.

It's quite a read. Part two will run next week.