It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? My last post is from September 3rd, which is the day my life changed. I’m not exaggerating, by the way. I know it sounds like hyperbole, but if anything, I’m underselling it. You se, I was in the hospital and unconscious a few hours after this was posted. It’s a lot for me to digest and even though I’ve been home three weeks, I’m still mulling over what happened.
I’m not ready to get into all the gruesome details, but suffice to say that I was unconscious for a week in ICU, woke up, and spent another week in PCU regaining myself to the point where I could be discharged. The first few days I was awake, there was talk of intensive physical therapy (PT) and other therapies as well (including occupational and speech). On the second or third day, the physical therapist said that she had nothing else for me because I had succeeded all expectations.
After waking up, I learned that I had not been expected to live. With all that was going on with me, I was given a 10% chance to make it through. When I woke up (and would not stop talking, apparently), there was talk of months of rehab and maybe me staying at a rehab facility before going home.
Funny story: I was given a wand of sorts with an emergency button on it (when I was in the PCU, two days after waking up). I was supposed to press it if I needed anything from a nurse, such as if I was about to go to the bathroom. Look. I loss any sense of body discomfort after having other people literally wipe the shit from my ass. I have no difficulty in talking about it frankly. Anyway, I refused to press the button because I was determined to make it to the commode on my own. Needless to say, I had more than one accident and after a spectacular one, the nurse asked impatiently if I had forgotten I had a call button. I pushed out my lower lip and said mulishly, “No. I just didn’t want to push it.”
I’m sorry to all my aides is what I’m trying to say. I was a royal pain in their collective asses, but it’s also probably what allowed me to claw my way back to life. I learned later that they put an alarm on my bed and chair so if I moved by myself, it would go off. Yes, I was such a troublemaker, they put me in lockdown.
The day I woke up, which was after nearly a week of being unconscious, my brother set up a Zoom call with my bestie, K, and another with my other bestie, Ian. In the call with Ian, I quoted the tagline for a cheesy ’80s video trailer for Dark Souls III, my favorite video game from FromSoft, of course. The tagline is, “When you pick a fight with the devil, you better be stronger than Hell”. I said it more than once and babbled about how I had taken on the devil–twice–and won both times. Later, I apologized to him for ranting for a half hour about the trailer, which made him laugh. He said it was a few minutes and that he was so happy to hear my voice, he didn’t care what I said.
I need to talk about my brother for a minute. Everyone is raving about how I made it through my experience, but I didn’t do anything other than lie there for a solid week. My brother is my hero because he’s the one who held it down when everyone around him was falling apart. He was the one who started a Caring Bridge journal and wrote in it every day as a way to have a focal point where everyone could go to see what was happening to me. He was the one who visited me every day, sometimes twice, linking my parents to me with Zoom (friends, too). He’s the one who found me (with a healthy assist from Ian, who contacted my brother when he (Ian) hadn’t heard from me that Friday. We always talk the first thing in the morning–my morning, so when he hadn’t heard from me by five or six his time, he was seriously worried). Actually, I give serious props to Ian for that because my brother and I can go weeks without talking. Anyway, once Ian contacted my brother, my brother sprung into action. When he found out I was at Regions hospital, he went into action.
After I woke up, he told me the story of how two social workers tried to talk to him and ask him how he was doing. They were gently trying to prepare him for the worst possibility. He brushed their concern aside and said, “If she dies, she dies. There’s nothing I can do about that.” I burst into laughter when he told me because I’m sure the social workers were mortified and horrified at his answer. I, on the other hand, immediately saw it for what it was–an expression of love. My brother has never been a person who talks about his emotions. His way of showing his care is by doing. If I need something fixed, he’s there. If I need help with my computer, he’s there. If my car won’t start in below zero weather, he’s there. I can count on him to do what needs to be done.
During my week of unconsciousness, I needed someone who was on top of everything, someone who could keep everyone in the loop. I needed someone who could meet with the doctors and make the hard decisions. My parents were in Taiwan and that’s not either of their forte, anyway. Understandable given the situation, of course. Because it couldn’t be my parents and I don’t have a partner, it fell on my brother’s shoulders. He took over without nary a peep of complaint and did what needed the fuck to be done. That has continued since I’ve come home as he’s done so many things to make my transition easier. Put together a commode. Put hand rails in the shower. Put a chair in the shower (which is the best thing ever). Install a handheld shower head so I can wash myself. Running to Costco every other day to buy me and my parents whatever we need. Changing one of the toilets for a better one that didn’t leak. Bought me a walker and other things I needed, in bulk, from Costco. Drove us to doctor’s appointments when he could. He’s done it all without protest and in such short time.
He’s my hero, but when I tried to thank him for all he’s done, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “We’re family. It’s what we do.” I want that on a t-shirt, by the way. He’s right, of course, but I doubt many people could have done it as efficiently as he had done it. In his place, I would have been a hot mess in between doing what needed to be done. Or after I finished what needed to be done. I’m good in an actual crisis, but then fall apart afterwards.
It’s so strange. I’m sitting on my couch, looking out a window I’ve stared out of a thousand times before. Everything is the same; nothing is the same. Both of these things are true at the same time, which is a duality I’m learning to live with. I look the same from the outside and can do almost everything I was able to do before. I’m getting more sleep than I ever have (the sedation medication in the beginning and now my body just rehabbing itself) and at first glance, life is continuing as ‘normal’. My stamina is roughly a fourth of what it used to be, however, and there are things if I do them, I’m instantly fatigued.
This is my new normal. I’m not sure what to do with it yet.