I’ve had plenty of time to think about what happened to me and the biggest question (well, one of the biggest, anyway) I have is why did I come back? My glib answer is that I believe three things brought me back to life (besides my incredible medical team): taiji, love, and luck. Only one of those I can control. though K argues that the love I received is a direct result of who I am. I argued back that it was to a certain extent, but since most of the people sending love, prayers, and positive vibes didn’t actually know me, it was more the concept of me than me that was receiving the love. That isn’t to say it wasn’t real or wasn’t appreciated, but it wasn’t for me in particular. I will acknowledge that the people who knew me were specifically sending me love, positive vibes (and chi), and prayers, which is especially appreciated.
Both my mother and K told me after I woke up that they were telling me I was a fighter and I needed to fight. My mother said she shouted it at me over Zoom whereas I don’t remember if K said it out loud or just thought it to herself. They’re too kind. What they mean is that I’m stubborn as fuck and contrarian in nature. My taiji teacher would tell you that I question everything and will never be satisfied with a glib answer. I can argue until the break of dawn and will not stop until the other person concedes my point–and sometimes, not even then. This is both an asset and a curse, sometimes both at the same time.
Honest talk: I’ve been passively suicidal for most of my life. Since I became aware of death when I was seven. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with it. I didn’t care much for life, but I was terrified of death and the idea of me being nonexistent. At the same time, I could hear the siren song of death and nearly answered more than once.
All that went out the window when I f collapsed to the ground in my front hallway. Obviously, I don’t remember any of this, but apparently, I fought the breathing tube while I was unconscious, which makes sense. When I woke up, I was mad as hell and ready to fight everyone. I had no idea who needed fighting, but I was sure it had to be done.
My experience laid to rest the idea that I wanted to die. Or rather, it revealed that my natural instinct to live is strong. I wasn’t ready to die and I came back, twice. Again, this is all information I gleaned from others because I was unconscious when it happened.
I managed to call 9-1-1 before passing out in my front hallway. The cops gave me oxygen while waiting for the EMTs. At some point, my heart stopped. The EMTs shocked it and gave me a hit with an Epi pen. This whole process was repeated again further in the ride. So, yes, I died twice and was brought back to life twice. I was without oxygen for some time, we’re not exactly sure how long. But, I arrived unconscious at the hospital and they had to put a breathing tube in my nose to keep me alive. They also dropped my body temp to 94 to keep the swelling down. Hm. I’m not sure if I was unconscious when I arrived at the hospital or not, but they kept me sedated so I wouldn’t fight the breathing tube.
The docs told my brother that the prognosis was not good. He was told that people in my condition had a 10% chance of coming back. At all. He was warned that if I came back, my capabilities might be severely diminished. They weren’t able to do an MRI for several days because I wouldn’t tolerate it so they didn’t know the state of my brain.
I know during those terrible days, my family and friends were praying and making bargains to bring me back to life. I can’t imagine how horrible is was for them as they waited for something, anything to happen. Like I said, I was just lying there unconscious so I was unaware of this all. They were the ones who had to bear the brunt of the pain, uncertainty, and tension.
But, I firmly believe that having so many people on the outside pouring love, prayers, good vibes and chi, and even just thinking about me had a major hand in guiding me through the darkness and into the light. Everyone keeps telling me that I was working hard by fighting to live while I was unconscious. I can almost accept that this is true, but I still think their part was harder.
In fact, I grieve that I put my friends and family through this experience. I was just telling Ian that I don’t question why this happened to me (because why not me? I’m not special and there’s no reason to think I should be exempt from going through something traumatic), but I do question why I was lucky enough to be gifted the miracle of coming back in as good as shape as I did. In addition, I do have lingering regret and guilt for putting everyone else through such trauma.
At some point, I’m going to look for a therapist who specializes in experiencing trauma and in survivor’s guilt. The downside to experiencing a miracle is that I feel I need to do something spectacular with the rest of my life or my comeback, as it were, will be wasted. I know I shouldn’t feel that way. My friends tell me that me coming back at all is enough, but it doesn’t feel like it. So much time, effort, and money was spent to bring me back; it would seem like a shame to waste it.
I’m trying to keep a taiji attitude about it–taking each minute as it comes. Doing the least for the best result. No hurry, no worry. It’s not easy, though. I went through a life-changing event, and I’m not being hyperbolic at all. I don’t know how to think about it properly. I talked to the hospital chaplain a few days after I awoke and he said the trick is to ponder what happened enough to see what I can get out of it, but not to overthink it because that would be counterproductive. I’m summarizing what he said, but that’s the gist of it.
It’s difficult for me because I overthink everything. Weirdly, though, I haven’t done that much with the actual experience. Or rather, after obsessively thinking about it for roughly two weeks, I rarely think about it at all. I mean, I do when I’m writing about it, of course. But otherwise, not really.
I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t have to figure everything out right now–which is good. Fretting about the meaning of my experience isn’t going to help and it might actually hurt. I’m still focused on my recovery and I don’t think obsessing over the meaning of what happened will help me in that avenue.
I tell friends when something momentous happens to them (meaning marriage, children, etc.) that they get a year to talk about that thing exclusively before they have to move on to other topics. It wasn’t necessary to them that because they weren’t that type, but that was for me, not them. I feel the same way about what happened to me. I get a full year to talk about it as much as I want and then I need to move on. I don’t think I’ll need that much time because I’ve already sharply curtailed how much I talk about it. Probably in prat because I am writing about it and because I tweet about it now and again. So far, my tweets have been mostly lighthearted and amusing, but that may change after time.
I haven’t come to any long-term conclusions about what happened to me yet. I may never come to any; I’m fine with that for now.