Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So (30 page)

It didn’t help that I was on the staff of the hospital where I went to get my stomach pumped. Had I been thinking more clearly, I would have gone elsewhere and maybe used another name.

“Doctor … what are you doing here?”

“I was hoping maybe you could start an IV, run some saline, and pump out my stomach.”

“Why are you dripping sweat?”

“Funny you should notice that.”

There are six ways mushrooms can be toxic. One or two would have been plenty. The less toxic ones make you very sick right away. With the ones that kill you, you feel fine for several days and then your liver dies and you follow shortly thereafter. Feeling
sick as a dog and having sweat pour off me so soon after my mushroom meal was a good sign.

“At least it’s not an
Amanita,”
I comforted myself.

What I had was muscarine poisoning, which shuts down the sympathetic nervous system, causing nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, painful constriction of the pharyngeal muscles, intense sweating, profuse tearing, and salivation—a relative bargain.

“I have a piece of the mushroom I ate and the Audubon guide to mushrooms open to the sweating mushroom right here.” The sweetbread mushroom was right under it. “They look a lot alike, don’t you think?”

My mind is like a lynch mob. If you know that about yourself, why on earth would you collect, cook, and eat wild mushrooms?

A few days after the
unfortunate incident
, for the first time in many months I was taking a walk without a basket or paper bag. I had promised my wife in a solemn manner that I would never never ever ever collect or eat wild mushrooms again.

On my return, walking into my own driveway, I couldn’t believe it, but right behind the wall under the ash tree I saw a small patch of what could only be the sweetbread mushroom. Really.

My wife wasn’t home. I took one of the mushrooms to make a spore print and hide it behind some books in my study. A few hours later I checked and it was pink, confirming that it was indeed the sweetbread mushroom. I didn’t go back and pick them or eat the one I had picked. I plan to be back waiting at that spot next year, when my wife will be in a better mood.

I like to think of it not so much as a lack of carefulness as a wish to move forward.

I love finding out what happens next.

Mark Vonnegut is the son of the late Kurt Vonnegut and Jane Cox Vonnegut and the author of
The Eden Express
, an ALA Notable Book. A full-time practicing pediatrician, he lives in Massachusetts with his wife and son.