circumstances would have been a proud theatrical triumph. Arriving home from school, I was obviously feverish again. Mom looked at me suspiciously and pronounced she was going to take my temperature before she would let father pick me up. She put the thermometer in my mouth and walked away. After two minutes with the mercury suspended in the air over my tongue it still read 103. I was in trouble. I shook it down, then cooled it on the window pane. The timing here was going to be tricky. Footsteps approached. The door starts to swing open. Pop the hummer back into the mouth, under the tongue. Smile. Wait. Wait. She removes it, and looks a little startled. "Are you sure you feel O.K.? You don't really look right!" "Mom, I feel fine! Besides, what could possibly go wrong. DAD IS A DOCTOR, AFTER ALL." "I don't know.............." I never did find out what that thermometer read. Could have been anything from 92 to 105. Which is about how I felt. I was picked up, and in an hour was snuggled between sleeping bags in the back of the Willys pickup on the way to the Okanagan country. I slept most of the way, and have no conscious memory of any sick feeling for the whole weekend from that point; ground-sluiced a grouse on Funk Mountain, and returned hale and hearty, ready to miss some more school. The lesson was not lost on me. Years later, age thirty five, prime of life, working out daily and in top competitive physical condition. My wife and I had a date to play doubles tennis that evening. I felt fine but my legs were a little sore. I had ridden my bike to work the day before, so I chalked it off to that, even though it didn't really make sense. I walked on the court and my wife and I squared off opposite the other couple to warm up. He hit the ball to me, and I moved to meet it, AND MY LEGS WOULD NOT MOVE. I looked down at them, lifted them up and down, took a tentative step. They seemed O.K.. I shrugged weakly across the net and took position again. He hit another ball to me, AND MY LEGS WOULD NOT MOVE. I tried to run, and nearly fell on my face. I quickly took stock of the situation, applied four years of medical school and four years of practice, and concluded SOMETHING IS REALLY WRONG HERE! By now everyone was looking at me. I had no choice but to excuse myself, and walked, to all appearances normally, off the court to the telephone and called a neurologist friend of mine. I
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