I cannot believe it’s nearly the end of another year. 2022 is nearly in the bag and it’s really whizzed by. Especially the last few months. Ian came to visit a year after my medical crisis. Kathleen came at the beginning of November. Both of those events were in a blink of the eye and the last quarter of the year seemed like one day. Now, we’re sitting on the day after Christmas and we’re less than a week from the new year.
2023.
How is that even possible? It’s been over a year since my medical crisis and I still don’t quite know what to do with it. When I talke about it, I pretty much say that it was a medical emergency or crisis from which I was not expected to recover. I leave it at that because I don’t want to bring down the conversation or make people feel sorry for me. I also don’t want it to sound like a humblebrag, which I know it does. “Oh, it was no big thing. I just had two cardiac arrests and a stroke, but I didn’t have to do any PT or rehab for them.” Unspoken is the “It ain’t no big thang.”
I know I was lucky. I am grateful that I escaped the negative ramifications of my medical crisis that most people usually go through. I scoured the internet to find a therapy group for people who survived cardiac arrests. I did not finy one. Why? Because most people who have cardiac arrests die. 90%. This is something that got impressed upon me while I was in the hospital. I shouldhave died. Or rather, I should have stayed dead. I died twice! My heart doctor said that to me.
I should be dead. This isn’t something I think about all the time, but it’s definitely in the back of my mind. I should not be alive. How does one really process that? In the RKG Discord, I was talking about almost dying and someone said he had almost died and it hadn’t changed the way he lived. In other words, he was still deperssed and anxious. I should have said that I actuallydied–not just that what happened to me was life-threatening. And I’m not trying to tell anyone else how they should feel about their near-death experiences.
All I can do is talk about my own. I literally died twice. I was without oxygen for a period of time. We don’t know how long, but it was enough that the police bagged me (with oxygen) when they came to my house.
So. Ok. I died twice in September of 2021. I spent the rest of that year recovering. No PT or rehab because I was fine in that sense. My motor skills were OK and once the blurriness of my eyesight disappeared, I could get back on the internet with no problem. I could type as fast as I used to (which is roughhly 100 wpm). The thing, though, was that I had no stamina. That was what affected me the most. It took me two months to get my stamina back. Saying that, I realize that I was incredibly lucky in that sense, too. Two months to be back to 100%? That is insanely lucky.
My parents left in the beginning of December when I was pretty much back to ‘normal’. In fact, they didn’t need to come at all. My mom admitted on the second day (of me being home) that she should not have brought my father. He was not happy with any attention she paid to me, and it got all sorts of messed up with the three of us. It would have been so much better if they had never known.
Think about that. I had a death-defying medical experiece, and I wish my brother had never told my parents. I did not blame him for telling them, obviously, but, man. I really wished he hadn’t. I think I would have had a better and easier time without them here. The only thing that my mother did that I coludn’t do at first was cat stuff (mainly cleaning his litter) and laundry. Foodwise, we ordered meals, which I could have done myself. Dragging in the food might have been difficult at first, but I was helping her by two months home.
Honestly, I could have hired someone to come once a day and that would have been enough. And with much less grief than having my parents here. My mom was so worried about my father, she put him ahead of me. My father only thought of himself per usual. I was the one who had died and yet, I was the one who was expected to cater to my father. Per usual.
Once my parents were gone, it was so much easier for me. I could focus on my recovery without having to worry about them. Or defend myself against them. I didn’t have to do what they deemed correct, but I was able to get back into my groove. I went on walks with them while they were here. Which, fine. I didn’t mind that much, but I did mind my mother constantly telling me I must be cold. I had no idea why she was saying that because she knew I did not get cold. It’s been a thing since I was a kid. i just don’t get cold. Why the hell did she bring it up? It was day after day. I realized why, though, about a week after she started doing it. It’s because my father was probably criticizing her for it. That was what he did. He knew he could not make me do what he wanted me to do, so he was going to yell at my mother until she felt compelled to bring it up to me.
When I told her that she knew I didn’t get cold (like, seriously, this is a thing about me. I’ve been like this since I was little. She said that she did not know what to say to me any longer. I mean, yes, you do. Or rather, you know what not to say to me. Don’t say stupid shit. Don’t say something that you know isn’t true. And don’t be a fucking martyr. Like, don’t be all injured when I rebut something stupid that you are saying.
And if you do say something you know is patently false, then don’t put on an injured air when I tell you it’s not true. “You must be cold”, especially when it’s accompanied by that little laugh that my mother always does when she says something she knows is wrong.
That was 2021. 2022 has been better in so many ways, but it’s also sucked in others. Let’s not forget the endemic that contniues to this day. Or the fact that RSVs are a thing now. People have lowered immunity from being in soft lockdown for a few years. This year, apparently the colds and flus are worse than ever.
As for me personally, I’m better than ever. I have a few memory issues and I can’t do simple maths in my head any longer–at least subtraction of years (as in age), but that doesn’t matter. I can do it on my PC or by paper and pen. If I can’t remember a word, I just use a different one. Or I remember it in a few seconds longer than it would normally take me. It’s not a big deal, is what I’m saying.
So the whole of 2022 was basically getting my feet under me. I needed to regain my bearings and come to grips with the fact that I was still fucking alive. In 2022, I spent many days just marveling over that fact. I think it was well into mid-year when it wasn’t the first thought of the morning. It’s still in the back of my mind as I said, but it doesn’t dominate my thinking any longer.
2023. I don’t know what’s coming in this year, but I think it’s the year I go from “I’m grateful to still be alive” to “I’m going to fucking thrive!”