Reflections of My History with Santana

'How goes it' or how it went

My first experience with Santana was in high school. Our PE instructor wanted us to break into groups, select a song, and create a skit designed for movement. Great, I thought.

I'm being facetious.

I was a halfway shy girl wearing the standard one-piece white cotton gym uniform that snapped up the front. I never liked it. 

The apparent and obvious "leader" of my group suggested we create a dancing fight scene - it could be like West Side Story or something similar. I remember thinking, "Are you kidding me?"

Great, I thought. And, no way did I want to have anything to do with that. "Why did I get stuck with this group," I thought. At the time, I could not see myself prancing around like some female karate trainer to the sounds of Santana on his guitar.

One of the songs our leader was suggesting was Soul Sacrifice. Honestly, I felt like I was sacrificing my soul just to participate in this bizarre activity.

I went with the flow though because I always did even when I didn't feel comfortable. I couldn't pretend I was sick because it wouldn't be true. Lots of other kids were ditching school and forging notes from their parents about how sick they were. 

As it turned out, our group was missing a couple of girls. "Gee, I wonder if they got sick?" So it was just the leader, myself, and one other girl. Since we didn't have a lot of time to practice, she told us where to stand and what to do on her signal. Fabulous.

The pure anxiety building up before our group was called to start felt like my heart was beating faster and faster. I really just needed it to be over. What would be an 8-minute show to the class seemed like an hour. I kept watching our leader and thinking, "why, oh why, did you decide what we were going to do?" And why did we go along with it?

We did pull it off and it was over, thank God.

In hindsight, I know the reasoning behind the activity now. I also know if anything, it helped me face a fear. It's hard to be forced to do things that you just do not want to do, especially when you're a teenager. (But not like my 4th-grade teacher making me eat macaroni and cheese before I could return to class - when I don't like cheese.) 

Off and on through the years, I would listen to the guitar sounds of Santana, and the music would take me back to that high school experience. Music has a way of doing that.

In the summer of 2019, a close friend took me to see them. I was so excited because I had never seen them perform live. We had great seats. The Doobie Brothers opened up for them. That was wild because I listened to them in high school too. 

I was lucky enough to spot Carlos Santana off to the side watching the Doobie Brothers perform. I remember looking up and saying to myself, "wow, he is sitting right there." 

Santana performed a lot of their classic songs including a favorite, Oye Coma Va. His wife, Cindy, just knocked me out with her drum performance. She is amazingly talented.

There were a couple of instances throughout the performance when I felt like I was going to faint. I thought I was tired, or just excited.

When I woke the next morning, I had a sore throat. I went in for a strep test and the nurse told me she couldn't do that for me because it looked like an abscess. She advised me to head to the emergency room. 

Sparing details and making a long story shorter, I ended up being in the hospital for nearly eight days. An infection in my tonsil wasn't responding to antibiotics and they attempted to lance it out and it didn't work. Ultimately, they had to go in through my neck and clear out a lot of infection which was starting to spread up to my scalp and down into my chest. 

My diagnosis was a peritonsillar abscess which infection spread into my skin. After the surgery, I was on IV meds for a while and all the skin discoloration and swelling cleared up. The concern for sepsis dissipated. It was very bizarre.

The one thing I do recall was not really having the opportunity to revel in the effects of seeing Santana perform. I went from joy to a medical concern I never expected. So many people visited or sent wishes and flowers. I was overwhelmed with all the outpouring of kindness and thoughtfulness.

Now when I hear Santana, I think about the unexpected medical situation.

You never know what life is going to hand you. You do the best you can to deal with what's in front of you.