In the fall of 1970, a particularly nasty flu hit the shores of San Francisco. It came to us from Hong Kong, or so we were told. Whatever its origin, it found a happy hunting ground here. Scarcely anyone escaped. One by one my friends, relatives, and co-workers stumbled off to bed with hacking coughs, raging fevers, and aching joints. But the worst was usually over in a week or two, so for all its unpleasantness the flu seemed to be no cause for alarm, at least among the young and healthy.

    That same fall I had just started a new job. In fact it was my first "real" job. After years of being a student, a traveler, and an (unpaid) artist, I had entered the world of working adults. I worked at the Department of Social Services, where a person like me, without an advanced degree or special skills, could find a niche. My work assignment was routine: interviewing recipients of Aid to the Totally Disabled. The charm of it was that the interviews took place in the recipients' homes, which meant that every afternoon I was out combing the city, exploring its secret places. I saw the back rooms of Chinatown's family associations, the tiny rooms of tenement dwellers, and even the elegant apartments of the very rich (they had poor relatives). And with some careful planning, I could be home with a few hours of daylight left to work on my etchings, for I was still keeping up my work as an artist.

    For the most part, I enjoyed my job at Social Services. I had no intention of jeopardizing it, or the paycheck that appeared as if by magic every two weeks, by being ill. But an airborne virus is hard to dodge. Inevitably, one September morning I felt the telltale symptoms. That day I could not finish my round of interviews. I headed for home, coughing and feeling worse with every step. I knew I should stop at the market and stock up on food, but visions of the long aisles and checkout lines discouraged me. Best to go straight home.

    The apartment where I lived with my husband was set high on a hill. From the back room, on sunny days, we could see out over the rooftops of the city to the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Headlands beyond. On foggy days the famous San Francisco mist draped itself beautifully over land and bay. To the east of the building was Hyde Street, where cable cars went clanging up and down all day and into the night. Even though I was a native San Franciscan, the city was still magical to me. I loved the fog, the hills, the rattly old "dinkies."

    As I struggled home, however, the city's charms seemed to have turned against me. The hill that I normally climbed with ease had become an insurmountable alp. The jangling cable-car bells pounded against my ears, and my throbbing head seemed filled with clammy San Francisco fog. In slow motion I managed to scale the mountain and then the three flights of stairs to my apartment door. Once inside I simply dropped my clothes to the floor and fell into bed. Just as well, I thought groggily, to get the damned thing over with. A little rest, a lot of chicken soup, and it would run its course. Then I fell into a stupor that no thoughts could penetrate.

    The kindest gift that nature has given us is the inability to see into the future. If I had known at the beginning how often I would repeat that painful collapse and how much endurance I would have to summon up, I would surely have given up the battle before it began.

    Avoid fortune tellers, tarot cards, and horoscopes. So much of our hope and our courage comes from simply not knowing what lies ahead.

    I slept for a week. At least I looked as if I were asleep. In reality I was slipping in and out of semiconsciousness, unable to rouse myself. I felt encased in lead, my eyelids welded closed. The dreamer dreams that she is awake but cannot open her eyes. When I did begin to wake up for brief periods of time, I found myself sicker than I'd ever been in my life. Sick beyond sick. It was not just that my joints ached - my entire body felt crushed. In my confusion, I wondered if I had been in an accident. Surely, to cause such pain, the bones of my arms and legs must be broken into little pieces. But when I looked at myself, expecting torn flesh and bleeding wounds, there was nothing to see. My body was intact. Or was that, too, just a delusion, a dream? With my brain full of fog, barely functioning, I couldn't be sure.

    During the next two weeks, I must have taken care of my basic needs, crawling to and from the bathroom, eating meals that my husband, Demetrius, prepared. I remember nothing of that. I only remember trying to lie very still, because every movement caused excruciating pain. When would this dreadful business end? What sort of bug had smashed me to pieces like this? I wasn't getting better. If anything, I was worse. Any activity, even the slight effort of picking up a book, caused a hideous backlash of exhaustion and pain. I learned to stay very, very still.

    In desperation I called my HMO and asked to speak with an advice nurse. I needed advice. A woman's voice came on the line and asked me what my problem was. Suddenly I felt incapable of telling her. What sort of words would describe the problem? I'd been run over by a freight train. Left for dead in the road. Abducted by aliens, my body stolen away. "I think I caught the flu," I finally said. "I've been sick for three weeks. I'm getting worse. I can't move. I don't know what to do."

    "Well," said the advice nurse decidedly, "the flu doesn't last for three weeks. You'd better come in and see a doctor."

    Come in and see a doctor? I could barely get to the bathroom without collapsing. Any movement made me gasp with pain. I thought of the jolting taxi ride to the hospital, the stairs, the corridors, the long stay in the waiting room, trying to sit upright in those molded plastic chairs when I couldn't even prop myself up in bed. Most of all I thought of what that extreme effort would do to my already shattered body. It was impossible, the price was too high. I hung up the phone without a word.

    Where were the doctors of my childhood, who came to the sick one's house, day or night, carrying a black leather bag? Had they all become corporations? A new era had dawned, one in which it was entirely possible to be too sick to see a doctor. The situation was ironic, if not amusing. "As soon as I get a little better," I promised my worried husband, "I'll go to the clinic and see someone."

    But my illness passed the one-month mark, and I was still the same. My broken body refused to mend. I could not walk; I could barely stand. Thinking was a major effort. Lifting so much as a glass of water sent me reeling. What began as a flu had become something monstrous that was consuming me. What was it? I needed to give it a form, a shape, an identity. If I knew its name, its power over me would be broken. I would know, at least, what to expect.

    There was no other way. I had to go to the clinic. I fought down my rising panic at the thought of leaving the precarious safety of my bed, reached for the phone, and dialed the appointments number.

    That phone call was the first step in my long battle to save my life.