What followed, this half hour later, was a dive to the dumps that I never want to know again.

I couldn’t walk, I gradually lost my appetite, my drive, my strength along with the work habits that keep me humming, providing the admiration I have for myself. It was even exhausting to breathe. Everything felt as if it was gone. To tell you the truth, I lost my will to live. It slipped precariously away, to the point where I asked my bookkeeper to come in so that we might rewrite my will. She did. I promptly fell asleep on the floor for two hours. Artist types mentally fade out when it comes to statistics.

Almost two weeks went by. I hadn’t even washed my hair. It was time to order a reversal on this condition. Time to importune the universe, as we like to call it, for help.

Being a do-it-yourselfer, I tend to take most of the responsibility for what goes in my immediate life. So, I put it clearly: “Help!”

Two days later an email came in asking if I would like to do a reading with Ed Asner for a new play. I would be able to sit (like the aging Lionel Barrymore did in his wheelchair). I could do what I loved. I could get out of the house, away from business and my too tight circle.

Still, I couldn’t move. No right-minded thinking could help pull the plug. Mind over matter didn’t mind me anymore, I got worse. Conflict seeped in. Who would take care of my son? All those orchid plants in my bathroom? I’d have to say good-bye to my Facebook friends. No more cat puns. Just a limp, listless, unwashed Rachel Maddow listener needing a miracle.

And then it happened. Not an anti-depression drug, not a flight to a favorite old haunt at Hamoa Beach on Maui, or even those delicious dinners sent to me every Sunday from Truxton’s in Santa Monica (a place Marlon Brando would have loved).

The turnaround, the “miracle,” was a call to a friend, a very dear friend, one who listened, to Dr. Gollard who said: “Julie, I think you have the flu.”