Yesterday was my birthday. I have been on this earth for 53 years, and I should have died for good 2 1/2 years ago. I don’t really consider my birthday my birthday any longer beacuse I was reborn on another day. That wouldbe September 3rd, 2021. More pragmatically, it should be a week later when I woeke up for good, but I preferred to mark it as the day I had my two cardiac arrests and a stroke. Not to mention walking (non-COVID-related) pneumonia.
I died twice that night and slipped into a coma. I was not expected to wake up, and my brother was told that he probably should start planning for my funeral. Also, he was told to start thinking about whether to pull the plug or not, which still haunts me to this day. That’s a decision that no one should have to make, and i hated the idea that he had to think about it at all.
We had talked about it before. Not directly about pulling the plug, but about Whether or not we’d want to live without any brain activity. I was emahatic that I did not want to because Terry Schiavo was one of my worst night mares. Her body being kept alive for nearly two deacdes (I believe) because her parents wanted it still haunts me. I would not want that, plus it’s a waste of time, energy, and resources.
I will admit that I was surprised they were talking about it that soon (less than a week after I was rushed to the hospital), but it was probably because I was so far gone and was not expected to live. Recentlry, my mother told me about the scale they used to determine how bad it was with a person in a coma (Glasgow Coma Scale). It’s a point system, and they assign diffrenet points to how alert you are.
My mother brought it up because someone in her church was in a coma. 3 was the lowest you could get and still be alive. There were three categories, so it was 1 per category. She couldn’t remember what my score was, but she was pretty sure it was very low. I was not responding to external stimuli, and my medical team was very worried about me.
Side note: I am very sensitive to meds because I’m Asian. This is a thing, but doctors don’t seem to know it. My brother tried to tell my doctors that might be part of the issue, but they were not paying attention.
Trulyy, I should have stayed dead. My medical team were diplomatic about it, but they basically told my brother there was no hope. this still messes with my brain sometimes.
I used up all my luck in that one event. I don’t deserve any more because it was a huge ask. But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want a little luck in other ways. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I don’t. With my latest personal tragedy, I would have given up several years of my life not to have to go through it–yet. It would have happened at some point, but my god. I just can’t deal with it.
I was very lucky in that I have not had many negative effects from my medical crisis. What has been impacted, I chalk up as a fair trade-off. My peripheral vision, which has never been good, is almost nonexistent now. My refelxes are worse than before–and they were never great. My memory which used to be stellar went haywire with the medical crisis. Part of that was probably the drugs, too. Now, my memory is better than it was was when I first got out of the hospital, but not as good as it used to be back in my youth.
The last point could also partly be because of age. Memory gets worse as you get older, obviously.
The one thing I’m worried about is my ability to write fiction. I can still write posts, obviously, but I’m struggling with the fiction. I can picture what I want to write about, but it just doesn’t flow the way it used to. Before my medical crisis, I had stories in my head all the time. Now, I don’t have them at all. I have ideas, but not the full stories.
I have two ideas that Iwould like to write. One is based on my experience in the hospital which was wild. I was high as a kite and everything ithought I was happening probably didn’t. I have tales about that time that would curl your hair–if they actually happneed.
Of course, I did not realize at the time that it was me being delusional. I didn’t figure that out until months after Ireturned home. Some of it like the testing happneed, but others such as two cabals did not.
I hope I can write fiction at some point. I have tried and gotten about fifty pages in more than once before giving up. I had two different ideas, and now I have threee in part beacuse of my personal tragedy. I ‘m wornderiing if Ican combine the three and see if it makes any coherent sense. I would be really unhappy if my ability to write fiction was gone completely.
Is it worth it? Well, yes, of course. I mean, I’m alive. There really isn’t a better alternative to that. But I’m frustrated beacuse I used to write fiction with ease. I’ve written dozen of novels in the past. Writing is easy for me; it’s editing that is my weak point.
Swear to god, I’m not humblebragging or bragging when I say that. I have always been able to write prolifically and easily. my rule was to write a thousand to two thousand word post a day and two thousand words of fiction. that’s thee thousand a words a day, and it was never a problem.
When I started doing NaNoWriMo, I met the goal with ease. It was never a problem so I started setting other goals for myself. Then, NaNo Rebels started, which was what I was doing from the beginning.
I’m done for now. More tomorrow.