It’s interesting thet things that get left unsaid. When I talk about my medical crisis, for example, I have no problems saying taht I was in a coma for a week, but I don’t like to mention what actually happened. Why? Because it seems…almost like bragging? I’m not sure exactly why. It’s partly because, and I don’t mean this to sound dismissive, but it really hasn’t affected my life in the day-to-day. I don’t have issues because of it except for some very minor ones. Like my periphery is worse and I have a few memory issues. Oh, and my reaction time is much worse as based on how I react to flashing button prompts in games.
None of that is life-thretaning or even something I really need to be concerned about. The fact that I can’t do simple math in my head? So what? I can pull up a calculator at any moment. I don’t remember a word? I can look it up or just keep searching my memory bank until it finally pops up.
It doesn’t hinder me, is what I’m trying to say. So it seems like I shouldn’t bring it up. A month or so after I left the hospital, I was telling K that it was weird to bring it up because it was such a conversation-stopper and seemed to be a ploy for grabbing attention. She said, “Minna, it’s part of your story. You don’t have to bring it up if you don’t want, but you shouldn’t feel like you can’t, eeither.”
But I do. I feel like I have to keep it to myself. it’s not something other people have pressured me about, but it’s just something that I feel self-conscious about. In part, it’s beacuse I know how incredibly lucky I am and how it truly is a miracle I’m alive. And I feel like I’m wasting it. In addition, there is just no way to slide that into a conversation casually.
“How about them Vikings?”
“Yeah, they’re doing great, man.”
“How you doing?”
“Great! I’m alive, which is a miracle after surviving walking non-COVID-related pneumonia, two ccardiac arrests, and a stroke.”
It feels like the more time that passes, the less I’m able to bring it up. Again, this is completely on me. It’s not like anyone is saying, “SHUT UP, MINNA! NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID MEDICAL HISTORY!” But it just feels weird. There’s someone in the RKG Discord who is in the hospital for unknown reasons, and I want to relate some of my experience, but I have been very careful not to mention my own medical crisis. In part because it’s not about me. But I did ask if he got the pure ox because that was the best. Oxygen for the uninitiated.
I will say, I wish I could just be normal once in a while. I’m watching a video in which each person introduced themselves with their pronouns. I don’t like pronouns. Any of them. I will begrudgingly answer to she/her, but I don’t like it. I would prefer to be called by name at all times. That doesn’t seem to be an eption, though. I support people being called by the pronouns they prefer, but I truly do not want to be associated with any of them. It’s my state of being in general, really. Not black or white, but Asian. Not gay or straight, but bi. When it comes to identity, I’m closest to genderqueer or agender. Just as I’m areligious. But that sounds snarky or that I feel like I’m better than everyone else. “Oh, I am above thinking about religion and gender identity and such.”
I’m not above it, but I am over it. I have thought about religion for far too long and I have concluded it does not matter to me. Whether there is a god or not, I mean. And to be clear, I don’t think there is a god. No sign of one while I was unconscious. No bright lights or angels singing. Just me being unconscious. This is another thing I don’t talk about, etither.
In general, I go glib when I talk about that time in my life. I say it was a medical crisis and I spent a week unconscious. When I mentioned to my brother that I call it a life-threatening circmstance, my brother laughed and said I was underplaying it.
I guess? But I really don’t know what to say. If I list what happened to me, that will just stop the conversation. And, quite frankly, I just don’t want to be known as the person who beat death. Twice. I mean, it sounds cool once I put it that way, Honestly, I would want to talk to that person because that person sounds badass. OK I’ve done a 180. I’m going to mention it all the time.
But, seriously. I don’t know how to bring it up organically. Maybe I don’t need to be subtle about it. Maybe I can just throw it on th etable without preamble.
“Hi, how’s it going?”
“I died twice a year ago. You?”
That sounds ridiculous, right? It has nothing to do with my daily life as my recovery was pretty smooth and easy, but at the same time, it has everything to do with who I am now. I don’t think you can really know who I am without knowing that about me. Everything about my beliefs changed after that experience.
I went from hating my body to loving it. It carried me through the darkness and emerged on the other side, stronger than ever. These broad shoulders really carried a load for that week, and it did it while I was unconscious. My heart, which has always been the best and worst part of me, proved its worth that week. It failed twice and came back twice. My brain went on the fritze, and it came back as well.
This is incredible when you think about it. Back when I first got home from the hospital, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was in the forefront of my mind that I should be dead. The fact that I wasn’t was a miracle, and not one I took for granted.
Wow. This was not what I meant to talk about, but I guess I needed to let it out. I’ll get back to family tomorrow.